Big Time Fortune
by Champagne Diamond
Summary: "We ought to give thanks for all fortune; if it is good, because it is good; if it is bad, because it works in us patience, humility, the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country." -C.S. Lewis
1. Chapter 1

**Kendall's POV**

It all started to get weird when our producer Gustavo took me, my band mates, my mom, my sister and his assistant Kelly out to dinner at the Glory Panda Super Buffet. We had just finished recording the last song for our first album which was coming out in a couple of months, and the spirits were high. Everyone ate way too much and you know it's a lot easier to laugh out loud when you're full so we were getting pretty obnoxious. I remember when Carlos was just coming back with his fourth plate from the buffet.

"Oh my God, Carlos! What is that?" Logan exclaimed, still laughing from something Kelly just said.

"What is what? It's chicken, jewfish!"

"Carlos I have no idea what that is but I am 100% sure that it's nooot chicken!" he maintained, cracking up and barely getting the last word out.

Carlos took a bite and shrugged. "Whatever. It's good."

"Looks like blackened rat with bubonic oyster sauce." Katie said, leaning over the table to see. This got my whole body seizing with laughter to the point where I just stared at the ceiling and clucked breathlessly every few seconds. It always turned out that we were cruelly ridiculing the food whenever the waitress came to our table, but her expression was as difficult to read as ever. I told myself that she didn't speak English, and even if she did she was likely fully aware of the squalor of their selection. She set down our check on a plastic tray along with eight unbroken, perfectly lined up fortune cookies. They never looked like that. Usually they were a complete afterthought on everyone's part but tonight they looked so very deliberate and inviting. The waitress bowed and left us.

"Hey! Fortune cookies time everybody!" Katie shouted, grabbed hers and started the tray being passed around the table.

"Oh dude I love those things! Give me it!" Carlos aggressed, taking the tray from Logan and tearing the plastic wrapper off of his spastically, breaking his cookie in the process. Logan rolled his eyes and took a cookie before giving the tray to me. I took one and handed it to James, who stared at the tray for a second. It's because of him that I remember how the cookies were situated just then:

There were two pairs missing, the furthest left pair and the middle-right pair. One of the cookies from the furthest right pair was still there. James took one of the cookies from the middle-left pair and there were two left.

"Hey, who didn't take one?" James asked whiningly as if it were against the rules of gorging oneself at Chinese buffets to not top it off with a contorted swatch of vanilla cardboard. Logan was across the table from James, seated next to my mom. She looked up from digging in her purse for her credit card and, upon seeing James looking at her, asked him to repeat himself.

"Did you take a fortune cookie, Mama K?"

"Oh, no I guess I didn't." she reached over and took the mate to the one James had just taken.

"Gustavo?" James said, implying the same question. Without looking up from his Blackberry, Gustavo waved his hand in James' general direction.

"I hate fortune cookies. There's always some grammar or syntax error and they don't make any sense. There are too many lucky numbers and to top it all off, they taste TERRIBLE!" he shouted grumpily. We all chuckled and shook our heads at Gustavo's overzealous denunciation. All except Kelly. She suddenly seemed worried and fearful. I was about to say something to her when Carlos began to recite his fortune for all to hear.

"It is time for your feelings towards old acquaintances to be reevaluated. Huh? Dude, what does that even mean?"

"That's the way they always are, Carlos. A 'fortune' is just a cryptic and vague suggestion that can apply to an almost infinite number of events and situations. They always seem to come true in an eerie way, but only because of your own paranoia and interpretation." Logan condescended.

"Whatever dude, I still believe in them! Read us yours and you'll see how true they are!"

Logan, eager to advance his argument with an idiot, opened his wrapper and cracked his cookie, careful to make only two pieces and to slide the slip of paper out of the middle in his own OCD way. As soon as he looked at it, his eyes widened and his mouth parted in stupefaction.

"What is it?" Carlos snatched it from his best friend impatiently and regarded the fortune. "Dude… this is so jank! We got the same one! How lame is this place?"

Logan took both of the fortunes from Carlos and started perusing them. I noticed James looking over my shoulder. I had eaten my cookie and was holding the fortune in my hands. James read mine for me.

"Seek opportunity in the most unlikely of places. Only then will your circumstances change." Kelly peered at me across Katie and James' chests suspiciously.

"That's what mine says too, Kendall." I was now keenly interested in what was going through Kelly's mind. After holding her gaze for a minute but saying nothing, we both turned to look at my mom as she read her fortune.

"Don't let preconceptions from the past hinder the future. Take the present as it is and seize the day." My mom looked up at James, knowing he was already staring at her. Sitting next to him, I couldn't really tell what their look meant. "Yours is the same, isn't it?"

"Yes." James admitted.

"But they aren't exactly the same." Logan suddenly said to James.

"What? Yes they are. Mine says 'Don't let preconceptions—'"

"I know. But look at the other side. What does it say?"

James flipped his fortune over. "Lucky numbers: 13, 18, 19, 11, 14, 9, 7, 8, 20."

"Hey, that is different." My mom butted in. "Mine are 10, 1, 13, 5, 1, 9, 4, 9, 1, 13, 15, 14, and 4."

"They really must be random, considering numbers are repeated in yours. There isn't even the same number of numbers as anyone else's." Logan concluded.

"Logan, don't you think you're obsessing over this a little too much? They obviously just put different numbers on the same fortunes to make them seem different when they can't come up with new ones. Plus this batch wasn't shuffled well enough." I said, attempting to pacify Logan who seemed unnecessarily shaken when he had been so jolly a few minutes earlier.

"Nope. Uh-uh. It means _some_thing." Carlos said with surety. "These things are the real deal! That old Chinese voodoo magic is nothing to shake a book at, my friends!" although we were all somewhat intrigued, we weren't to the point of listening to Carlos. I've never been that confused.

"Well mine isn't like any of yours." Katie spoke up.

"Really?" my mom questioned. "What does it say?"

"Don't doubt yourself. No one is too weak to save another, too young to know what's right or too small to be loved." Even Gustavo paid attention to that one. James said what we were all thinking.

"Wow. How freakin' weird is it that Katie got that one? It almost seems… personal."

Gustavo snorted. "Yeah right! I bet if I picked up that last one it would say the same thing." At that, we all stared down at the last uneaten fortune cookie. Actually, it wasn't the last; Logan was nibbling on a piece of his nervously and Kelly had left hers thoughtlessly on the table. Having been unsuccessful in finding her card, my mom put some cash on the table.

"Let's go." She said, standing up. Gustavo looked up at her incredulously.

"What, are you freaked out Mrs. Knight? By some uncanny fortune cookies? May I remind you that you are a GROWN WOMAN?" Mrs. Knight scoffed and gave Gustavo no answer, quickly leaving the private dining room that we had rented. To my surprise and bemusement, James got up just as quickly and followed her out. I got up and went towards the exit passage a few seconds later.

"C'mon Katie, mom's your ride home." Katie got up and stood beside me.

"Kendall," Gustavo barked, "give this money back to your mother. I said I would buy everyone dinner and I am keeping that promise." I took the money from him and he was redeemed in my mind. My mom was acting pretty weird when she left. Little did I know as we left the restaurant that that odyssey of a Friday night had barely begun, and that nothing less than destiny awaited us all outside the walls of the Glory Panda…


	2. Chapter 2

**Logan's POV**

Something was definitely off. I had had a weird feeling ever since I opened up my fortune cookie and saw that it said the same thing that Carlos' had said. At first it seemed general, like something was watching me from the corner of the room, but then its intentions became very clear when Kendall, Katie, Mrs. Knight and James left in a hurry. There was heat coming from my right side. I didn't dare to look yet. It wasn't just Carlos' body heat, and besides we weren't sitting that close. It was like an ethereal flame fuelled by his emotions which licked at me provocatively. Feeling that the moment was right, I stole a glance at Carlos. He was staring off into space, his eyebrows furrowed, moving his mouth in the smallest and most frantic ways as if he were doing an algebra problem in his head. All at once, he stopped and turned slowly towards me. At this point I was more than alarmed. His eyes had attained a strong gravity, and I felt myself attracted toward their profound abyss. It seemed as though his thoughts were infinitely complex and yet as simple as one word. I knew he was thinking about me because when our eyes met there was nothing left to be said. Eye contact is the original instant message, after all. I knew all his emotions as quickly as it happened, but I refused to believe any of them for the time being. It was ridiculous to think that everything could change that quickly. But had his emotions really changed? Or was it just the circumstances that had changed? When I think about it, that fire in Carlos' spirit had always been burning under the surface when we were together, but we had denied it fervently.

"DOGS!" Gustavo interrupted without noticing what was going on at all, "Go on out to the limo now and wait for me. We'll just be a couple of minutes." I saw him give Kelly a somewhat menacing glare, but I wasn't able to make anything of it for all my distraction. I turned back to Carlos. He seemed to need desperately to say something to me. I got up and gave a weak smile to him as his eyes followed me.

"Ready? …Carlos? Ready to go?" it took a moment for him to fly back to reality.

"Oh, yeah. Let's go." He got up and followed me out the door, seeming lost.

_This is unbelievable, _I thought. _Ours fortune cookies tell us to reevaluate our feelings for each other and suddenly he can't take his eyes off of me? I just… I can't take it! It's so annoying! _I turned around as we walked through the parking garage. Carlos was trailing a few feet behind me. He smiled as if he realized that he was acting crazy and that I needed reassurance that he wasn't. But I knew that that smile would fade back into a wistful gaze as soon as I turned my head around. I felt myself getting angrier and angrier at Carlos. Emotions cause thoughts really much more than thoughts cause emotions, and the anger bubbling up inside of me was completely out of my control. I started to complain to myself about Carlos.

_Certainly he's attractive, and his personality is agreeable enough, but he's such a vacuum! I need a boyfriend that I can have long conversations with without touching the subjects of popcorn, skateboarding or chicken wings. I mean, sure, that's what teenagers are supposed to talk about but I'm way too mature for my age and I'm not going to deny that and let my intellect rot just for a sweet piece of ass. Oh my God! Ugh! Why am I so angry right now? Carlos, that cocky bastard. He probably thinks he can get any girl or guy in bed if he wants, even me! _I whipped around to make sure that he was still watching me. He bumped right into me, and our heads knocked painfully. Had he been trying to smell my hair or something?

"Oh, sorry! Logan, are you okay?" he fussed.

"Yes, I'm fine!" I touched my head. "Ouch!"

"Here, let me look at it." He parted my hair and examined the wound. "Well it's not bleeding. I think you'll be alright." I looked up at him in a crabby way and he seemed to take that as the perfect moment to kiss me. Initially, I wanted to throw up in his mouth, but let's be honest about this. Horny is horny and it goes well with angry. Plus, we had a limo to roll around in. So I dragged him into it.

**Kendall's POV**

I walked with Katie out to my mom's car, where I thought she would be, but it was locked and dark.

"Where do you think she went?" Katie asked, sounding a little frightened to be stranded in the dark city parking garage at nine o'clock at night, not that she would ever admit it. I couldn't think anything except that she was with James, but my thought process stopped there. I couldn't imagine what they would have to say or to do with each other.

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

It was like the universe had tilted on its axis. Everything was distorted. Something extremely inappropriate had transpired between James and me at dinner, and I needed a cigarette desperately to clear my mind. The thing is, I promised Katie and Kendall when their father died that I would be around to take care of them for as long as I could, and part of that deal is that I had to quit the cigs. But you know how it is; I still kept a pack at the bottom of my purse. For emergencies. I couldn't get him out of my head! His eyes, his lips, his hands and how much they could do… oh I had been alone for way too long because statutory rape had never been on my bucket list.

"Mama K?" I heard from a few feet away. It was depressing to realize that he thought of me as a mother, weather he wanted to bang me or not. Had it really been that long since I had been able to get guys his age at a dime a dozen? I thought I still looked pretty good. I couldn't help longing for that old spontaneity of going to a concert, finding some greasy horndog in cologne-drenched leather and just letting the world shake with pleasure in his truck bed until it cracked in half. I turned and looked at James Diamond. Men hadn't changed since the nineties. No, everything was still in the same place, including the one and only thing that had ever been on their minds…

**Kendall's POV**

I decided that if my mom wanted to fool around here at the mall, then Katie would have to come back to Rocque Records with us for a little while before she went home. I expected that she would understand. After all, tomorrow was Saturday and Katie loved riding in the limo with us whenever she could. As we approached said vehicle from down the aisle of cars on the other side of the third floor, I could already hear music blasting from it and filling the whole cavernous room up with echoes.

_Get you where you wanna go, if you know what I mean_

_Got a ride that's smoother than a limousine_

_Can you handle the curves? Can you run all the lights?_

_If you can, baby boy then we can go all night_

'_Cuz it's 0 to 60 in 3.0, baby you got the keys_

_Now shut up and drive!_

My intuition striking me despite all logical improbabilities, I told Katie to stay a few cars away just in case as I got close to the limo. Then I could hear Carlos and Logan's voices under Rihanna's drawling notes.

"Oh God Carlos you're such a child! I can't believe you know how to do thaaaat! Ahhh!"

"(muffled voice) I read about it on the internet!"

"I guess it's a good thing you weren't doing your homework!"

Unable to contain myself any longer, I burst out laughing and slapped my hand across my mouth to try to keep from embarrassing them. The music was turned down a couple seconds later.

"Did you hear that?"

"What? No!"

"It sounded like Kendall! Put my pants back on!"

I ran away from the limo laughing my ass off and took Katie by the hand as I went by. When Logan rolled down the backseat window and looked out, we were already on the elevator going back to the buffet.

"Do you see him?"

"No, I don't see anybody!"

"Okay, then please don't stop the music! It drowns out your shrill moaning!"

We went back into the foyer of the Glory Panda and I sat Katie down on a bench.

"Please stay put, okay? I'm going to go look for mom."

"But we saw her leave with James!"

"I know, but she might have come back in looking for us so it's worth a try. I'll be back in a minute."

I was headed toward the dining room we had been sitting in when I heard a whimper out of the corner of my ear. I doubled back and pressed it against the door of the women's bathroom. There was definitely someone crying hard. I cautiously opened the door and poked my head inside.

"Mom?" I asked just to be sure, though I was almost positive it was her (mostly just because I wanted it to be).

"Kendall?" a tortured voice responded.

"Kelly?" her voice was unmistakable, even through the sobbing. It had always sounded so strong before but now it could have just as easily been my little sister calling my name. I stepped into the bathroom and was about to ask what was wrong when I saw it. The blood trickling out from under her stall. I would never think of Kelly, or anyone I knew for that matter, the same again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Kelly's POV**

I tensed up when I heard the bathroom door open.

"Mom?" I sighed in relief. It was just Kendall. At times like that it would really strike me how young and naïve those boys were. I found myself thinking how wonderful it would be to go back to when I was sixteen, just Kelly from the block hanging out, being goofy with my slacker high school friends. Before I met Percy and had to give up my first baby, before I dropped out, before Gustavo found me on the streets and saved me from myself, and way before things started to change between us… I was just like Kendall. Going to dinner with my mom and calling her name into the women's bathroom to find her so she could drive me home. I was just like that before I was alone. Before now.

"Kendall?" I replied just to be sure. I couldn't let him see me like this, obviously. I would have to make up a lie about the blood and get him to leave as soon as possible. I never really know when it's safe to assume that I'm free for the night, and Kendall's career would be over if he got in the middle of this.

"Kelly? Oh my God, why is there blood? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"No, no Kendall I'm fine! Just an out of control nosebleed. Your mom's not in here so…"

"Really? That seems like a lot of blood to come out of your nose! It must be pretty bad—"

"Well, they can get pretty bad for me sometimes but it's no big deal! I'm used to it. I'm not going to bleed out or anything. I'd rather just be left alone if you don't mind."

"Are you sure you don't want me to take a look? Do you have enough toilet paper?" by this time he was trying to peek over the top of the stall. I facepalmed at his irritating persistence.

"Okay! You caught me Kendall! I was trying to be discreet, but you blew that to Hell! It's _LADY TROUBLES, _okay! I can take care of it myself!"

"Lady troubles?" Kendall sounded intensely confused. "Kelly… you're a lesbian?"

"No, for God's sake Kendall I'm on my _period_!" there was a few moments of silence and then a small oh from Kendall.

"I'll leave you… alone then…" and I heard the door open and close a few more seconds later. I hated that I couldn't think of any less humiliating lie under pressure… but it does always work when you need a guy out of your face. Ha, some feminist I was, exploiting my menstrual cycle in light of the reality of the situation. That's what I was thinking when I spit up a third mouthful of blood in the sink and examined my bruised face, dabbing at my cheek with wet wipes. I would have to politely excuse myself from the meeting at Rocque Records to discuss promotional activities for the next month and pile on the foundation the next morning. Gustavo had scheduled the meeting for after dinner because he was giving the boys the whole weekend off as a reward. I, of course, was still on call. Twenty-four seven.

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

There was some spell about James which everyone noticed. He had the ability to make anyone feel like a teenage girl. It could have been the hair, the skinny jeans, the guyliner or maybe the way the top button on his shirt was undone to reveal just enough skin to make you want to see the rest. His lips were parted so he appeared to be breathing out of his mouth. How could I be turning him on when all I was doing was standing on the sidewalk under a streetlamp smoking the last inch of my cigarette and clutching my cardigan to my body with my other arm in an attempt not to freeze to death (though it would have been worth it)? Yeah, it was the last week of August but a freak cold front had come through and although that made it nice during the day it was quite a shock to the system after sunset when it got below 50˚F. I had the vague sensation of needing to get back to my children, but I had no idea how long I'd been outside and I kept convincing myself that they were still sitting around the table and chatting in the warmth of the buffet. Speaking of the buffet, the food baby that it had impregnated me with a few minutes earlier helped to keep the shivers away. But I could think of only one other thing that would do an even better job… hot chocolate? Yes. But there was one other thing…

**James' POV**

I wasn't thinking straight. Clearly something was wrong with me. Mrs. Knight was my surrogate mother, the woman who made my toast and moved my delicates over to the dryer. She wasn't supposed to be sexy. Especially not when we were both about to explode in wonton soup stink bombs. But there she was, gracefully wavering in image through her cloud of smoke like some ghostly nymph of temptation. What would Kendall say if he saw me right now, staring into his mother's eyes as bright as cinders and being pulled into a world of obsession from which I could not return? My fortune came to my mind suddenly. _Don't let preconceptions from the past hinder the future. Take the present as it is and seize the day. _I had taken it as a message about moving on from my life back in Minnesota and embracing my new fame, but it made just as much sense to apply it to Mrs. Knight. Who said she couldn't be sexy? Right now, she was screwing me with her eyes. I was ready to seize her already.

**Carlos' POV**

Logan was texting someone on his phone. He still looked angry, just like he had ever since we left the restaurant. It was a bittersweet moment, and the feeling still comes back to me just as strong when I think about it now. On one hand, I was sitting in the backseat of the limo with him, neither of us were wearing pants, we had just had sex for the first time and I was completely, suddenly, undeniably, eternally in love with him. On the other hand, he was totally pissed off, hadn't looked me in the eyes once, didn't seem to make anything of what just happened and was generally disgusted by my presence. Still, the butterflies I got in my stomach from looking at him were enough to keep me affirmative.

"Logan?"

"Mmhmm?" he grunted lackadaisically.

"Do you think that maybe we should talk about what just happened?"

His eyes darted from the screen of his phone to my face to assess my sincerity. "Umm okay. You kissed me and I decided that we were going to have sex. Then we did. Are we done?"

"But dude…a few minutes ago we were best friends, and now we're something totally different. Aren't we? I mean, don't we have to be now? Do you have feelings for me Logan?"

"Other than a rapidly increasing ire, no." he looked up at me again, seeming amused. "What…? Do you have 'feelings' for me, Carlos?"

"Well… yeah. I kinda do."

His smile faded to a slight smirk. "I see." Then his eyes traveled back down to his phone and he continued to text. I felt betrayed and hurt, but for the first time in a long time I didn't feel alone. I knew that I couldn't feel alone with Logan after that.

**Katie's POV**

I sat on the bench near the front doors inside the restaurant and shuffled my feet. All around the small room with the maître d's podium were bright yellow lights that made the walls and the ceiling look like gold. The Chinese lanterns around the border swung playfully in the air flowing from the heating vents to the north, south, east, west… I glanced at the maître d', or maîtresse d' I suppose (I've been taking French for a couple of years now in school… sorry for geeking out on you), who was regarding me sideways with narrowed eyes. Or, at least I thought she was narrowing her eyes… I didn't hang out with Asians a lot. I made awkward little noises with my mouth and looked in every other direction, hoping she would stop paying attention. She did. She probably didn't think I was going to start any trouble (I have that effect on people, on account of my sweet little face, which makes it all the better for me when I do start trouble and need to get away with it). She just didn't want to have to call the police when they closed at 11 and this schoolgirl was still abandoned in their lobby. I imagined that Kendall was probably flirting with some cute girl at the Hibachi grill. It was whatever. I never got to go out and leave the Palm Woods to have fun. I was too young. Hanging out with the guys made me feel older. Stupider, but older. So I didn't mind waiting around and having to go to the record company. After a few more minutes, I looked up from the ground and saw our waitress from dinner coming into the room and heading towards the front doors. She had a homely purse slung over her shoulder and a modest coat draped over her arm. As she walked, she removed the wrapper from a fortune cookie, broke it in half and ate the first piece. She stopped to have a few words with the maîtresse d' in Chinese, read her fortune, rolled her eyes, tossed it on the floor and pushed her way out onto the street. I got up, went over to the fortune and picked it up. _Don't doubt yourself. No one is too weak to save another, too young to know what's right or too small to be loved. _

"Hey, that's my fortune…!" I whispered to myself. The maîtresse d' seemed about to say something disparaging about my loitering there, but she didn't need to. I couldn't resist the urge to follow the waitress. She needed to have that fortune. We needed to share it. So I ran out the doors to give it to her. Lucky numbers: 11, 1, 20, 9, 5, 11, 14, 9, 7, 8, 20.

Author's note: thanks to stefunnylovescarlos, Likeyah64 and albert efron for your reviews! I promise to see this story through to its fabulous ending for you guys. And to stefunnylovescarlos, you inspired the whole **POV **thing in case you didn't guess, and I hope you aren't mad that I stole it. I love that format. ;) *Champagne Diamond*


	4. Chapter 4

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

The moment was lasting too long. He was going to kiss me before long if I didn't say something.

"James?" I spoke up, remorseful of killing the sensual silence between us, "what did you come out here to tell me, anyway?"

He swallowed hard and found his voice with as much difficulty as I had. "Right, I guess I was just wondering if you were okay. You seemed kinda freaked when you left a minute ago… it's not that weird that we got the same fortune, right? I mean, Carlos and Logan, then Kendall and Kelly… it can't mean anything."

I nodded slowly. "Of course it doesn't mean anything. Meanings are for young people. There comes a time in everyone's life when they realize that events, meetings, acquisitions are all random chaos. The only thing with meaning is what we choose and the difference we make based on all of those things." James seemed to want to stare at me again like before, but I resisted and wouldn't hold his gaze. I dropped my cigarette on the ground and snuffed it out with one of my grey flats. God, when did I start wearing flats? It was time to leave. I needed to get away from James and all the nostalgic passion he whisked up inside of me. I didn't have the slightest idea how I would live with him now that things were like this. I would have to crush it. But it would kill me to crush it. I hadn't felt wanted like James wanted me since Kyle and I were dating. That seemed like three lifetimes ago. I remembered that life for a moment, when I could still walk in heels and not get blisters.

"You've been through a lot, haven't you Mrs. Knight?"

"James…"

"Yes?" he got closer. Too close. His breath smelled like eggrolls.

"Call me Kristen. Please. You're making me feel old talking to me like some schoolmarm when we're alone like this." He smiled. He wasn't used to me being candid with him or any of the boys, and neither was I. I needed some friends to talk to. It felt good to be real and not be "Mrs. Knight" every once in a while. I smiled back, to my surprise. "I really haven't been through any more than most old women like me have. Shit happens. We get through it. We get bruised and we scab over. We get stronger and weaker at the same time. Along the way, we accomplish one or two things. Like being the stage mom to the most attractive and talented boy band of the last two million years."

"Oh, two million years, huh? Like Big Time Brontosaurus?"

"Basically."

"So you remember that? Were they good?"

I punched him in the arm. "Shut up! I never actually saw any dinosaurs, okay? Just a few saber-toothed tigers and dodo birds." I giggled lightheartedly and so did he. There was a moment of silence after that wherein I knelt down against the streetlamp and leaned my head against it. James knelt down beside me so our faces were close and tried to get me to look him in the eyes like before again. I couldn't resist, if just for a moment.

"You're not old, Kristen… you know that, right?"

"Yes, I am James. Trust me. You aren't my doctor. You haven't seen what I have to put in my tea at night."

"Fine, if you are then I like old. Old is wise and elegant and beautiful and definitely my style."

Damn. He had to get all romance novel on me.

"James, do you wanna go somewhere tonight? I haven't been out in years and I don't want to go home and snuggle up under the covers with the Lifetime Movie Network and a cup of Sleepytime alone like every other night since we came here to California. In fact, I'm sure that that wouldn't work tonight. I don't see the point in both of us lying awake in the same apartment when all we want to be doing is having fun. Nobody has to know, right?"

James smiled wide. "You don't have to convince me, Mrs. Knight."

"Kristen."

"Right." He was still smiling. What the Hell was I getting myself into?

"I'll just text Kendall and tell him to take Katie home with the band."

**Kendall's POV**

Flustered from my embarrassing encounter with Kelly, I hurriedly looked around the rest of the Glory Panda for my mom but she wasn't there. By the time I was back in the foyer, though, Katie was nowhere in sight! I asked the woman standing near the front doors where the little girl who had been sitting on the bench went. She told me that she had run out after one of their waitresses a couple of minutes ago. _Oh great. _I thought. _Just what we need tonight, one of my kid sister's wild goose chases with strangers. She's probably scamming that waitress out of every dime in her wallet as I think. Wait! I need to go find her!_

I went outside and looked in both directions down the street but Katie wasn't in either of them. Just the timeless orange glow of the streetlamps and a car turning on and off the street every half a minute. There was someone coming, though, and I think I recognized her. Oh yeah, it was our waitress from dinner! That must be the one that Katie went out after.

"Excuse me, miss?" I said as she approached me. Her look was waxy at first, but as she got closer and could see my face she seemed to melt into a state of total interest and fixation. She smiled and nodded for me to go on with what I had to say. "Have you seen a little girl about yea high (I put my hand at hip-level), eight years old, brown hair and bangs?"

She smiled wide. It was the first genuine emotion I had felt from her. "I just saw her." She told me, "She came running up to me on the sidewalk wanting to give me this." She held up a little slip of paper from a fortune cookie. "I dropped it in the lobby and she informed me that that was bad luck, so I took it. She said we were fortune buddies and that we needed to look out for each other." She smiled again. "She was really sweet."

Her voice was not at all what I had expected from her delicate appearance. It was strong and low yet infinitely soft and well-intentioned. Also, she did speak English, and very well at that, something which I felt guilty for assuming to be untrue when we were making fun of the restaurant she worked at earlier. "So it's that way?" I pointed back to where she had come from.

"Yeah," she nodded. "I hope she didn't run away on my account! If so I can help you look for her—"

"No, that's okay. Don't worry about it." I smiled reassuringly and started down the sidewalk at a low trot, then turned around to catch the waitress just before she entered the restaurant. "I didn't catch your name." I said with a hint of flirtation.

She turned to me and squinted through the darkness. Blushing and tucking some of her sleek black hair behind her right ear, she told me. "Citrine Hu. Now go find your sister!"

**Citrine's POV**

I had lost it. I couldn't believe that I, the girl who had nothing, could lose the only thing that she cared about in the whole world. I had never lost it before. It was like an act of God, and not the good kind. I remembered seeing it in my purse when I went to the bathroom earlier that day, and I had been working ever since so it was definitely in the Glory Panda. I just hated having to go back just when I was free of that damned place. I reentered and was met by the familiar leer of my sister, the maître d'. She didn't ask why I had come back. She just wished I hadn't and wanted me to leave again as soon as possible. I walked past her and started scanning the floor of the whole restaurant, laying low and just hoping my mother didn't—

"Citrine!" she yipped from across the dividing wall and I peeked over it reluctantly. She narrowed her eyes. "There's a mess in the ladies' room. Get the mop and clean it up before you leave."

"But mama I just clocked out and I've got a show tonight—"

"You and your shows Citrine! Playing dress-up doesn't pay the bills! Now get to it!"

I nodded dejectedly and went for the broom closet. I heard her call me again and I turned.

"Oh and Citrine… don't let any of our customers see you in there."

I nodded again and cursed her under my breath. She just had to add that last slap to the face. She always did. I was too easy to ridicule. I guess it was my fault, in the end. If not mine, whose?

I entered the bathroom, mop and bucket in hand and gasped at the preponderance of thick, dark red muck lurking in one of the stalls. _Blood? Yes, it had to be blood tonight. This is going to take hours to get off the white tile. God really must be trying to tell me something. And here I thought I was doing everything I could with the curse he gave me. I guess I messed up somewhere along the way._

Yet even with all my cursing as I got down on my knees to commence with the sponge-scrubbing once all the excess of blood was in the bucket, I still knew that I had no choice but to perform every task set before me with the greatest of diligence. After all, money wasn't my payment for this job; no, my salary was life itself. It was as simple as that: scrub blood off a toilet bowl or die. I knew that someday my life would be so wonderful that all of this grunt labor would be repaid one-hundredfold. Once I was discovered. But how was I ever going to get discovered if I didn't do my shows?

There, the floor and tile were spotless. I sighed deeply and got up off my aching knees. My back complained loudly. I put the sponge in the bucket and rolled it towards the door. Then it caught my eye. The blood-streaked sink. Twenty more minutes of work for me. My frown deepened. I fished the sponge out of the bloody bucket and wet it again, thus scrubbing to my heart's discontent. After that, I was done. Really done. Having labored so, dancing in heels seemed the most appealing toil. I wiped my head and heard a wet splat as I dropped my sponge onto my white sneaker. I knelt down to pick it up. _Right, it ruined my shoe. Well, that was bound to happen. Just more work trying to bleach this thing next time I get the chance. Oh well. _I threw the sponge into the bucket over my shoulder successfully, allowing myself a small grin at how good I had gotten at wet sponge-tossing. In the filthy and darkened alcove beneath the sinks, something glittered. I stayed on the ground and reached into the space. I couldn't believe it when my hand wrapped around exactly what I had been looking for. My citrine necklace that my grandfather had given to me in his will. The most beautiful thing I could ever hope to own and my lucky charm. How it got down there, only God knows. But there was something tangled up in the gold chain… I freed it… a fortune? _Seek opportunity in the most unlikely of places. Only then will your circumstances change. _

"Now I like this one! The other one was too serious. This is something I can live by!" I pocketed the fortune and got up. Putting the mop and bucket away, I looked at the clock. We still had a few customers left. Could it really still be only 10:30? That meant I had enough time to make it to my show if I ran like a jackrabbit through a snake's nest! I thanked the lord with a puff of air and ran out the door as fast as my feet would take me. Perhaps tonight could still be my night to get discovered.

Lucky numbers: 11, 5, 14, 4, 1, 12, 12, 11, 14, 9, 7, 8, 20

**Gustavo's POV**

After… talking to Kelly, I needed something. Something expensive. So I went to the chocolatier's in the mall and bought a block of their most decadent fudge: orange raspberry white mochaccino crèmesicle. My guilt melted away as the greasy chocolate confection melted in my hands. I spent just as much time licking them as I did eating the fudge. I felt 100% better, but then I remembered the meeting that I wanted to have with the dogs at MY record company, and I hauled myself back to the limo. I saw that the lights were on inside as I walked up to it, so I figured that the dogs were already hanging out in there waiting for me. When I opened the driver's seat door, there was an extreme amount of shuffling in the back compartment. I rolled down the interior window and saw Logan holding a magazine up to his face upside-down with his legs crossed up on the side bench and Carlos fumbling with his belt buckle as if he was defusing a bomb and only had three seconds left to do it. He finished and looked up at me.

"Gustavo! My main man! How hangs it? What's the down-low shiznack?"

"MY shiznack was fudge. What have YOU been shiznacking on?" I turned my eyes to Logan suggestively, and he peered over the top (bottom) of his medical journal.

"Me?" Logan squealed. "Me and Carlos? What, are you kidding? I might as well get down with an alpaca! With those ears, he might at least hear a word that came out of my mouth…" he glanced sideways at Carlos, who appeared crestfallen. I shrugged and started to roll up the window.

"Wait! Where are James and Kendall?" I asked them. The door opened and Kendall and Katie came crawling in. She popped open the mini-fridge and pulled out a Pepsi. He sat between Carlos and Logan, then, feeling the tension instantly, hopped over to sit next to his sister. I looked at Kendall. "James?"

"Oh, he texted me. He's riding solo tonight. I guess he's skipping the meeting."

"Like Hell he is! Where is he going?"

"I don't know. But… my mom texted me too a few minutes ago. She said she was going to do some early Christmas shopping. I guess the cool weather got her in the mood. So that's why Katie has to come with us. She'll just hang out until we can take her home." Kendall explained apologetically. Katie nodded solemnly, her lips locked on the can of soda.

"No way Diamond thinks this is gonna fly! We're tracking him down!" I put the limo in reverse and floored it into the aisle.

"Whoa! How are we gonna track him down? This is downtown L.A., not Dillard's! We can't just page him and get him brought to the security desk!" Kendall argued.

"Did somebody say security?" an unbelievably low voice said, sounding more like a bass drum than a person. We all looked at the door of the limo. Outside it stood none other than the infamous one-man army, the terror of the Palm Woods, the one and only Freight Train. The most dependable of all my lackeys. He pulled the door open with one finger easily and climbed inside, rocking the vehicle to the verge of foundering before settling across from Kendall and Katie. I grinned.

"Thank you for coming so quickly, my friend." I cooed. He nodded.

"I'm never far away."

"Okay, so we've got the means to recapture James, but where do we start?" Kendall asked.

"That one's easy." Katie spoke up. "There's only one place James goes to 'ride solo'." She looked at me and we said it together in unison. "Club 'Cuda." I smiled evilly.

"Time to crash a party and bring my boy back to the doghouse! Hold onto your man-purses bitches!" I cackled and sped at double-illegal speed out of the parking garage in hot pursuit, wishing that I had enough money to make my limo turn into an X-Wing.

**James' POV**

Kristen took me to her mini-van and we got in. I looked through the darkness, trying to make out her expression. There was a quiet that had fallen over us since we decided to go out together that night, as if now that we had decided to do something "wrong", we didn't need to mince words. Like what had just started was going to last long enough for both of us to say everything we needed to, but this was the moment we were supposed to use to deal with what was about to happen and what the implications of it would be. Once we were at the club, then we would have fun and dive headfirst into sin, but in the diffuse luminescence of the downtown avenues, we surrendered to rumination. We both wanted this; we weren't second-guessing. We just needed it to sink in. The novelty, the enjoyment, the pleasure that we had chosen. I looked at her again, and she was looking at me too. She looked scared in the shadows, for a moment, and the cinders in her eyes had turned to frost. Then it was gone, and she seemed once again ready to go through with this.

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

I froze for a moment when James' eyes met mine as we sat at a stoplight. In the distorted city shades, he looked exactly like Kyle did when we were sixteen and he was my world. And with the way James was looking at me, I couldn't decide whether I was cheating on my husband or about to go out partying with his ghost. I calmed myself quickly, but I still had to turn away. When I opened my eyes to the other side of my vision, something even more disturbing met them. Perhaps the most disturbing vision of all: my son's record producer clutching the steering wheel of his limo, looking like he was about to blast off if the light didn't turn in the next two seconds. **Gulp.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Jo's POV**

I stared out the window of my bedroom in our Palm Woods apartment. Everything was still and unchanging. Outside, I could see the city shimmering and vibrating with activity, but all around me was stillness, stagnancy even. I looked down. The pool was empty. Bitters never let us swim after dark, even on Friday nights. I was home alone, and it didn't help that the Big Time Blockheads, who were usually the life of the whole building, were out having shenanigans at a Chinese buffet. They didn't think to invite me, of course.

_I've let go, finally over you_

_This drama that you put me through_

_I'm better all alone, alone, alone, alone…_

That's right. Kendall Knight had the nerve to dump me. Just when things were getting good between us, he said he needed space. A bad taste came to my mouth. I couldn't believe that I ever cared about him. He was such a dork, a goofball, a bore, a couch potato, a drama queen, everything I ever wanted… a male version of me! I turned the music up and sobbed into my pillow.

_I'm sick and tired of the mess you made me_

_You're never gonna catch me cry_

_You must be blind if you can't see you'll miss me 'til the day you die!_

_Without me, you're nothing!_

I punched the stereo in the power button.

"Shut up!" I cried for a couple more minutes before I noticed a sound coming from the other side of the wall that I hadn't noticed before. It sounded like singing. I went to the thinnest wall in the apartment—my parent's closet—and listened closely.

"_You're the only one I wish I could forget_

_The only one I'd love to not forgive_

_And though you break my heart, you're the only one…"_

I knew that song, but I had never heard it sung so beautifully before, or with so much feeling… I knew I had to sing along, no matter how much it was going to hurt…

**Camille's POV**

"Though there are times when I hate you 'cause I can't erase the times that you hurt me and put tears on my face… even now while I hate you, it pains me to say I know I'll be there at the end of the day!" _What? Is someone singing along with me?_ I experimented by moving through the apartment as I sang my heart out (literally).

"I don't wanna be without you baby!" she followed me to the kitchen.

"I don't wanna broken heart!" she followed me to the living room.

"Don't wanna take a breath without you baby! I don't wanna play that part!" I was at the front door. I could still hear her singing along. I knew who she was, but I was incredulous. "I know that I love you, but let me just say… I don't wanna love you in no kind of way! No, no!" I stepped out into the hall. My eyes met hers as she stepped out too. "I don't wanna broken heart, and I don't wanna play the broken-hearted girl! No, no…" we got quiet as we stepped nearer to each other, nearly whispering face-to-face.

"No broken-hearted girl."

"I'm no broken-hearted girl." She finished. I stared at her. I never thought we would be like this. Jo had always ignored me, only bothering to talk to me about "the boys". We weren't actually friends, and she had no idea how much I admired her. She had never even seen me for who I really was.

"Kendall?" I asked her. She nodded and bit her lip.

"Logan?" she asked in return. I shrugged.

"Who else?"

"Can I come in?" she ventured hopefully.

…I thought she'd never ask.

**Mr. Bitters' POV**

The Palm Woods was quiet that Friday night. I remember it well. The calm before the storm. I grumbled as my third pot of coffee of the day began to percolate on my Mr. Coffee in my personal break room. We met at dawn, noon, and dusk. He was my best friend, my companion, my confidant, my wingman. Mr. Bitters and Mr. Coffee, best friends forever. He even made my coffee extra bitter because he knew just how I liked it. When I took that first sip and my whole ugly face screwed up into a reviled grimace, I knew it was meant to be. I patted him on the head, remembering that life-defining moment.

Setting my "World's Best Grouch" mug down on the counter, I picked up a couple of fistfuls of tangled cords and dragged them into the lounge. Open Mic Karaoke was about to start, a monthly occurrence which I loathed and dreaded with every fiber of my being. There was scarcely a soul to be found on the ground floor then, but that was because everyone was out partying. When they brought their drunken debauchery back to the Palm Woods to rest up for the next day and discovered that there was karaoke in the lounge, they would all congregate like flies on a carcass for one last laugh. That's how it always happened, and that's why I hated Open Mic Karaoke night.

I nodded to Buddha Bob as I dropped the cords on the stage, beginning to unwind them and stick them in random holes on the speaker until it worked. He was wiping down tables from the dinner crowd.

"What's the word, Bitters?"

"Misery, Bob. Misery and utter loneliness."

"Got that right Bitters."

Okay, so maybe Mr. Coffee wasn't my only friend. Suddenly, I heard the piercing sound of heels colliding at terminal velocity on my neatly waxed tiles. I turned and saw the most beautiful woman that had ever been alone in a room with me and a janitor. She stopped and put her hands on her knees, breathing heavily.

"Am I too late for the show?" she asked in a crazed desperation. I looked at my watch. It was 11:05.

"Technically, yes you are. But you're also the first one here, so come on in." She smiled and walked up to me, straightening out her skirt laboriously but maintaining eye contact. She held out her hand demurely as if I was to kiss it, and so I did. A big, wet, sloppy smooch. She scowled slightly, but held on to her civility.

"Citrine Hu. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr.…?"

"Bitters." I smiled as pretty as I could.

"Mr. Bitters, I understand that the Palm Woods is a very prestigious hotel which houses active recording artists regularly and is even considered lucky for making it big?"

"Absolutely, miss. You heard right."

"Do you, yourself have ties to the recording industry, Mr. Bitters?"

"I most certainly do. I've rubbed elbows with the biggest names in the business, believe you me! Why, for the right price I could get a girl on Gustavo Rocque's doorstep by tomorrow."

"Really? That's amazing! But don't you want to see me perform before you make a promise like that?" I nodded quickly.

"Oh yeah, sure! Sure. You'll be our first one up." How stupid was this girl? Didn't she know that no one cares what you sound like as long as you're pretty, up for anything and have an adroit skill for generous bribery? Whatever, tonight was clearly my night to get lucky with some howling tramp from Chinatown _and_ make a pretty penny! I wringed my hands in greedy anticipation.

**Gustavo's POV**

If that light didn't turn in two seconds, I was about to BLAST OFF! I stared into the red light, willing it to explode. It didn't. I rubbed my eyes and looked around at how many people had to be piling up behind this broke up light. I had to rub my eyes again to believe what I saw to my right. It was Mrs. Knight in her van looking like she'd seen a ghost, but there was someone with her! The red spot in my vision throbbed and I couldn't make out the face of her companion for my life. Next thing I knew, he was just a pair of legs wriggling their way into the backseat. Mrs. Knight waved at me and gave a super phony smile. Then we were both bathed in green light and she sped away before I could wave back. Shaking off the weird vibes, I pulled up in front of Club 'Cuda a few minutes later. It was packed and the bass from the speakers was shaking the earth for blocks. There was a line around two corners. I pulled up right in front of the doors, knowing that I owned that red carpet.

**Carlos' POV**

I stared at Logan all the way to Club 'Cuda but he never looked away from his magazine, not even once, let alone at me. And he was still holding it upside-down! I willed his head to turn, his eyes to show kindness for just a moment to let me know that he didn't hate me. It was one of those moments where you just want to pin puppet strings up all over somebody and make them do what you want! As we pulled up and stopped, my resolve returned. I knew Logan didn't hate me. If he did, he wouldn't have done the things he did to me in the limo just a few minutes earlier. I told myself that I was going to get him to dance with me, whether he wanted to or not, and that he was going to like it. A bouncer from the club approached the limo and opened the door for us, Gustavo having informed him of our identities, and beckoned for us to come in. All of the other people in line were glaring jealously at us, wondering who we were. Gustavo rolled down the interior window and pointed at me, Logan and Freight Train.

"You three go FIND JAMES!" he pointed at Katie and Kendall. "We're going to find some ICE CREAM!" he pointed back at us. "Hurry up! We'll be back in HALF an HOUR!" Freight Train rolled out first, again almost tipping the limo over, and I hopped out after him. Logan dragged himself out, pulling the door sluggishly closed behind him and obviously wishing he could be about a million times more miles away from me. Like on Venus. He put on a pair of sunglasses as if hoping that no one would see him with me. Well, HELLO, we were in the same boy band! There wasn't a single picture of either of us almost anywhere that didn't have both of us in it! All of this behavior only made me want to break him more. I licked my lips as the roar of the club caved in around us and swallowed us up.

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

I finally found myself parked outside the Palm Woods in my usual spot. I looked at James in the backseat. He seemed concerned.

"So much for going out and having fun." I said wistfully.

"We could still go out! We just have to be more careful!"

"No, James! I can't have you diving in the backseat every time we stop at an intersection and I think I see someone I know. I can't believe I didn't realize how stupid it would be trying to party with you out there, looking over my shoulder every minute, giving people fake names…" I felt really bad for leading James on, but seeing Gustavo and having him see me had scared me out of my skin. What really bothered me, though, wasn't that we had had the bad luck to stop next to them so soon after embarking on our surreptitious endeavor, it was that it had _bothered _me so much! He made me feel like I was doing something _wrong_! I hadn't done anything wrong yet! I was just taking a sixteen year old friend to a minor-friendly club! People do that all the time, right? Who's to say what I had planned on doing after that… or what I still planned on doing as soon as possible…?

I got out of the car and stood up. Over the roof, James' and my eyes met squarely. We stood like that for a second before I locked the car and cleared my throat.

"So what do you want to do now?" he asked expectantly.

"We should go up to the apartment…" I started, looking down. "…I doubt the boys will be back very soon. When they heard that you were going out and having fun, they probably decided to do the same thing. So… it'll probably be a couple of hours." I met his eyes again just as I finished my thought. He understood that the ball was in his court for now. He had a few minutes to think of whatever slick thing he wanted to say next. We both went into the lobby through the front doors and were heading to the elevators when we heard live singing coming from the lounge. I looked at him and grinned. "It's Open Mic Karaoke night, isn't it?"

"Oh yeah, the 28th!" when he regarded my grinning, his look turned intense and I knew why. He was deciding whether it was worth going up to the apartment and taking his chances seducing me to miss Open Mic Karaoke. What a hard decision for a music-obsessed teenager. I decided it could wait.

"C'mon," I urged, "let's do it! I wanna see who's singing!"

He nodded in approval, allowing the slight disappointment to fall over him. I wanted to relish James' physical tautness and sex-depravity for a while longer before devirginizing him. God, how was I already thinking like that? I must be some kind of were-cougar. Blame it on the full moon. That's when all the over-40 milfy skin bags go trolling for overeager studs with pointy emotenuses. _It's a growing counterculture, _I told myself. Whatever it would take for me to sleep at night. If I even had time for that… sheesh there I go again!

**Citrine's POV**

I got up onstage and took a deep breath. I was glad that the lights beneath me made it hard to see the two men who were watching my every move like hungry wolves. I imagined that I had a crowd that was watching me instead, just as closely, but for the right reasons. Because they loved me. They were my fans. Just like my wildest dreams. The song that I was about to sing was one they all knew by heart, because I had sung it into my hairbrush a thousand times. They would all sing along with me and whatever feeling that gave a person, I knew it would be the opposite of alone. I nodded to Mr. Bitters. I had given him my CD full of all the songs I know and feel down to my soul. The only CD I owned, the one I never let out of my sight and took to all of my shows. It was a miracle that I even had it, after all that had happened since I had the capability to make it. But not really, because aside from my lucky necklace that was the only thing that I really made sure to hang on to. Track 5. He pressed play. My heart jumped at the sound of the first note, but after that it was all like flying.

"Listen… to the song here in my heart… a melody I start, but I can't complete." I couldn't make them out too well, but I saw two more people walk into the room. For a foolish moment I dared to dream that my crowd had finally come, but alas they were alone.

**Buddha Bob's POV**

I couldn't believe the soul that burst from her lips the moment they parted. It was as if she had lived a hundred times and not forgotten a single moment of pain. Her sound was low and husky, but not the least bit gloomy for all its lament. I couldn't help myself. I wanted to know more about her. I'm sure that I was drooling all over the clean table by the time she reached the chorus.

"…into your own, all 'cause you won't listen. Listen! I am alone at a crossroads! I'm not at home in my own home! And I've tried and tried to say what's on my mind! You should have known! Oh! Now I'm done believing you! You don't know what I'm feeling! I'm more than what you've made of me! I followed the voice you gave to me, but now I've got to find my own!"

By the time she finished, she was totally out of breath. Not standing to hold back my enthusiasm one second longer, I began ravishing her with applause. I couldn't believe that I was the only one clapping. I looked around. Reginald had a look on his face reminiscent of a dog sitting outside a butcher's shop looking in, and I think I saw James and Mrs. Knight standing near the doorway. Wait, James and Mrs. Knight? Why were they together, and alone, but together and alone? And why were they standing so close to each other? Citrine thanked me and bowed several times before timidly descending the stage. Reginald spoke a few words to her before leading her out of the lounge and toward his desk, her nodding profusely and hanging on his every syllable. I sighed. If only it were my place to speak to her, if only to tell her how amazing she was. If only to tell her that she didn't need to be famous to be loved. If only to tell her that she was too good for Bitters and Rocque. The only problem was that it wasn't my place, because she was most certainly too good for me too.

**Mr. Coffee's POV**

I sat on the counter in Bitters' break room as I had for the last four years without moving. As it turns out, that spot was where Bitters' previous coffee machine had sat for a number of years previously, and who knows how many coffee machines sat in the same spot before it was even Bitters' break room? I have had a lot of time to ponder that, and the thought makes me feel distinctly… insignificant. It's not as if I have no self-respect or self-awareness at all. I had a lot of hopes and dreams in the time that I spent at Lowe's. I dreamed a dream that life would be… so different from this Hell I'm living. It didn't take me long to realize what kind of man Bitters was. I heard his conversations with the denizens of the Palm Woods. I understood how hated he was. I knew by his incensed ramblings over the cups of coffee that I brewed for him that he was not well in the head. I knew that I was his only reliable companion and that embarrassed me. He was angry at the world and capable of anything. I wished that I could make him stop, make him give me away or leave me alone but I knew that I had to obey him. It's the Mr. Coffee code: to serve and sustain the working man.

Mr. Bitters has some reason to remember the Friday night in question, to be sure, but not nearly as much as I do. That was the night that I lost a huge part of me forever. I hate that night. And since that night, I hate Mr. Bitters more than I ever thought I possibly could. I remember him coming into the break room with a girl that I had never seen before. She seemed hopeful, like I remembered once being. She had stars in her eyes.

"So that's it? You'll call ahead for me and I can go see Mr. Rocque tomorrow morning?" she asked incredulously. My master nodded his head and his hungry grin intensified.

"That's it, my sweet. All that's left is the matter of payment…"

"Oh, yes! Of course, payment…" she looked down into her purse and a hurt frown came to her. "I don't think I have any money. What if I paid you retroactively, like in increments?" she suggested pleadingly. Bitters got closer to her, close enough that his perpetually protruding gut was impressing itself upon her and lifted her chin to force her to look at him.

"That's not the kind of payment I want anyway, honey…" he said and grabbed her shoulders, strong-arming her into a sloppy kiss which she took several seconds and all of her disgusted strength to pull out of.

"Mr. Bitters, stop! Stop, please! I don't want to do this with you! There must be another way!"

"Shut up!" he snarled and throttled her, still completely in control of her wiry frame with her shoulders scrunched up in his paw-like fists. He kicked the door shut and he and I both knew that it locked automatically, something which he had been very insistent on when he was refurbishing that room in his first days at the Palm Woods. The girl kept babbling and pleading with Bitters to let her go, and when he put his fleshy hand over her mouth she screamed into it with all her might. This prompted him to lay her down across the card table to my left and duct tape her mouth shut while suppressing all of her struggling with his immense weight. The look that I saw in her eyes is one that I have not forgotten to this day, one which still haunts my dreams when I'm unplugged or during power outages. It was pure fear and desolation, the kind of emotional force that can lay rot to a human soul in the blink of an eye… or the impact of a fist.

I willed myself not to look, as there was nothing I could do. Bitters took off the girl's coat, and, getting scratched in the face too many times during the struggle to allow her freedom any more, duct taped her thin and feeble wrists to the tabletop. As he attempted to take off the girl's shirt, she began to make use of her legs, nailing him several times in the knees and once in the groin before he roared in anger and went to take his hammer out of a drawer. With a full-armed swing, he pounded on her right tibia, making a sickening smashing sound and causing her to convulse with pain, scream out and begin to cry torrentially. Her body thus weakened by pain and made flaccid, Bitters removed the girl's shirt (leaving her bra on, for what reason I don't know) and finally her pants (she had been wearing a waitress' uniform, something I made a small note of once her coat was off). Licking his chops and going in for the kill, he pulled her panties down to her knees. The break room took on a terrifying silence. Even the naked girl's crying had been frozen by her own fear of what was about to happen. She looked up over her own splayed body at her attacker's face. It was twisted up in horror and rage.

"Oh my _God!"_ he spat damningly and backed away from his victim. One of her bindings came loose and she tore off the other, instantly sliding off the table and collapsing onto the floor, unable to walk. She looked up at my master with the same plea of mercy and crawled toward him as he backed up more, needing help to get up. She reached out her hand and grabbed his pant leg, trying to use him to lift herself. "Argh, no! Get off of me, you freak!" he yelled, pushing her face back. She grabbed his other leg desperately to keep her balance on her knees and Bitters, in a panic, took my pot and raised it high. We would never be together again. My pot and I. The biggest part of me, taken in an instant without any hope of a goodbye. I winced as I heard it come down on the girl's head, shattering into a million pieces and scorching every inch of her with fresh-brewed coffee.

Bitters dropped the handle on the ground. Pieces of me were everywhere. The girl's broken body lay lifeless on the floor in a black puddle, burnt and brown all over. I knew it was too late to save her, but righteous indignation seized me and, summoning all my gumption, I let forth a burst of boiling steam and blew my lid. Bitters simply scowled at me and took my plug out of the wall. As my vision slowly faded, the last thing I remember seeing was my evil master opening the door of the break room, checking in every direction for lookers-on and beginning to drag the body out to his car. The twinkling in the eyes of the stargirl had turned into two profound black holes.

Please review if you have any thoughts! Or just keep reading if you don't. ;) Also, have a wonderful day! *Champagne Diamond*


	6. Chapter 6

***Karaoke Star***

**Powering up…**

**Shuffle Mode**

**Shuffling…**

**Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes**

_Her hair is hollow gold._

An angel had fallen from the sky and now she was on my bed. My heart was racing. Fear and ecstasy were doing the tango in my head. I was afraid that this was somehow a trick to get me to admit that I had a heartbreaking crush on the girl next door; I was ecstatic that she was currently talking to me like we were best friends, though the sentiments in my mind were much stronger. She looked up from the tear-soaked tissue that she was kneading in her hands. Her eyes were red and swollen, but full to bursting with kindness and sincerity. She smiled despite herself.

"Camille? Are you even listening?"

_Her lips a sweet surprise._

I blinked. I couldn't believe that this situation was actual reality, that I could interact with it and affect it. I had been sitting on the floor looking up at Jo, completely convinced that I was dreaming and trying as hard as I could to remember every detail so that I could write it down in my journal when I woke up. I laughed, and, with the surrealistic quality of the moment, felt the need to be completely honest.

"Ahaha, no… sorry, I spaced out. What did you say?"

She shook her head. "I was just saying that sometimes I don't even feel like they're worth the trouble. Guys, I mean. They're always playing games, fooling around, sending mixed signals and changing their minds! They're so hard to understand. I wish that a relationship could be easy… like this."

"Like this?" I repeated, swallowing my giggles of flattered joy.

"Yeah, Camille. Like you and me. Just sitting around and talking. Just getting along! Just not being serious. You get that. You do get that, don't you?"

_Her hands are never cold. She's got Bette Davis eyes._

I bobbed my head up and down in intense agreement. What I wouldn't have given to take Kendall's place. Next to Jo, Logan just seemed so… lame. So unlike me. Plus, there were times when I was absolutely sure that he was gay and that he only hung out with me as some pathetic cover-up. That didn't infuriate me; quite the opposite, it was kinda sweet. But we weren't really friends. We weren't really anything. It wasn't so bad for my reputation to be seen with a hot, smart, sweet future doctor-slash-pop star, either, so I suppose what we had lasted as long as it did because it was a mutually beneficial silent contract.

"Well, let's stop talking about them. Do you wanna watch a movie? The night is young!"

_She'll turn the music on you._

"The line is out the door…" I mumbled.

"Huh?" she said. God, she looked so much like Kendall when she made her "Huh?" face. It was almost creepy.

"Nothing." I smiled. "What movie do you wanna watch?" I started to rifle through my DVD collection.

"No need to look!" she exclaimed, grinning wide. "I already know exactly what I need on a night like this." She reached into her bag and pulled out a DVD case. "Breakfast at Tiffany's. I was going to go down to the lounge and watch it alone, but…" she pushed her lips out and her eyes darted away for a moment, "…the company is much appreciated!"

_You won't have to think twice._

The DVD was in. Holly Golightly got out of a taxi with a bag of doughnuts in one hand and a disposable coffee cup in the other. She zeroed in on the diamonds in the window of Tiffany's without a moment's hesitation. Those were diamonds that she could never have, that she could never even hope to have without being the most fabulous dreamer of all time. I looked at Jo. She was already smiling like a child. This was her favorite movie. I knew that she only watched it when she really needed to feel good, when she felt like her life was falling apart. It gave her hope and put the twinkle back in her eyes. I wondered if Jo knew any of those types of things about me. No, of course she didn't. Because Jo was my diamond in the window. She was perfect in every way, and just seeing her sustained me, but I would never be good enough to have her all to myself. I simply couldn't be in the right place at the right time.

_She's pure as New York snow. She's got Bette Davis eyes._

I started to sit on the floor again, but Jo made a little pouty face at me and patted a space next to her on my bed. _Right_ next to her. On my _bed. _I wasn't sure if I'd be able to contain myself, but I couldn't resist. I sat down next to her and stretched my legs out in front of me while using my arms like kickstands to hold my torso up to face the TV. It was the same position that Jo was in, and it was cute. She smiled and looked back at the movie. I smelled her shampoo as her head moved. Passion fruit and mint (one was her shampoo, the other actually her conditioner… don't ask). I inhaled it like a glutton.

"You should turn off the light." She whispered.

_And she'll tease you! She'll unease you!_

Clap! Clap! The overhead light went out. She giggled.

"That's really cool, Camille." The only illumination was coming from a lava lamp on my desk and the blue and green Christmas lights that I had strung about here and there, which I absolutely never unplugged. We sat like that for the rest of the movie, and I was content. I couldn't help looking over at her once in a while, just to indulge in her adorable face. At the end, when Holly finds Cat between some crates and rushes to Fred at the mouth of the alley, both of them completely soaked as it poured rain, and embraces him passionately as Cat pokes his head out cutely from between their two bodies looking miserable, I felt something on my hand. I turned to Jo. She was crying but holding back the sobs by biting her lower lip. I looked down at her hand on mine.

_All the better just to please you._

It was warm, wet, and soft, like she had taken out her heart and put it in my hand. I slowly, gently lifted my hand up and laced my fingers in with hers. A big title card took up the whole screen that simply said "The End". But it was the beginning of something for us. I looked into her eyes and I felt a peculiarly literal sensation of falling, like I was actually falling in love. I was about to have a heart attack when she brought her face closer to mine, and I was sure that she was going to kiss me. If she had, I probably would have blacked out. But she didn't. She just whispered, "I have an idea."

_She's precocious, and she knows just what it takes to make a girl blush._

We snuck downstairs and through the lobby. Through the open doors of the lounge, I could see Mrs. Knight onstage singing karaoke with James and Buddha Bob sitting at tables watching her. There was a strange energy emanating from the room. Even stranger was the emotional jolt that I got when I walked by Mr. Bitters' break room. The door was closed, but I could feel something terrible and sinister lurking beyond. I'm not very psychic, but my intuition is enough. My body was cold all over. I could have sworn that I heard muffled screaming. I decided that it was just a shadow or a poltergeist in a huff and cast the notions out of my mind. Jo pushed the doors open and we tiptoed into the pool area, me gingerly closing the doors behind us. There wasn't a soul to be seen or heard. The shimmering aquamarine water took on a ghostly demeanor under the full moon.

"I'm sure we're safe." Jo said, smiling mischievously as she kicked her flip flops off. I couldn't believe what was happening. I had resigned myself to the heavenly bliss of that Friday night which still lives as a legend in my memory.

_All the boys think she's a spy. She's got Bette Davis eyes._

We may have gotten caught in the end for skinny dipping in the Palm Woods pool, but I wouldn't have hesitated even if I knew what would happen right then. No price was too high to pay for the way Jo made me feel.

**Shuffling…**

**Use Your Love by Katy Perry**

_I know you know my boyfriend is out of town…_

I started to sing to James from atop the stage of the Palm Woods' lounge. They were already hard to take, the looks he was giving me. I felt like a needed a robe; he had undressed me with his eyes the moment I put my lips to the microphone.

"…so have a drink, let's talk it over!" I lifted my cosmopolitan high and took a swig. James laughed. I envied his youth. He didn't need alcohol to have sex. He was drunk on hormones. When I finished the song, I went down and sat in front of him. I put my hand on his knee. "So you gonna sing a song for me, big boy?" He shook his head.

"I sing every day, Kristen. It's my life. But being with you…" his voice quieted, "…is unlike anything I've ever felt before." He was being honest. There was no reason for him to think that he could bullshit me into bed, or even that he needed to. I looked around. The axe maniac was nowhere to be seen. I looked into the dark lobby. He was standing at the closed doors to the pool area, looking very intently at something outside, drooling just like he had when that Asian girl had been onstage. _Whatever_, I thought, _it certainly isn't the weirdest thing he's ever done. At least he's not eavesdropping on us._

_So many things I shouldn't be saying now…_

I couldn't say the same. About never having felt the way I felt about James before, I mean. But I… I think I was feeling that way in a new way. I had gone from thinking of men as friends to lovers many times, from coworkers and peers to lovers, from enemies to lovers, from dreamboats to lovers, from professors and policemen to lovers, even from the guy who works at Kinko's to a lover. I had never before known what it was like to think of a boy as my own son one morning, and to, by the end of the night, know him as my lover. So yes, it was a new feeling for me. A new forbidden fruit to taste, to lick, to suck, to bite, to consume. I knew that if I said something along those lines, or anything at that moment, it would come off as creepy. So I let my eyes do the talking with the help of… hand gestures.

_You know I like my boys a little bit younger._

"Let's go upstairs." He said suddenly. _Yes! _I thought. _Finally, he asserts himself! _I decided to be coy.

"Are you tired?"

"No…" he stood up and reached out his hand to lift me up. I cocked an eyebrow and took it. His eyes were like an expensive hardwood. Setting mine ablaze, I started a wildfire. I took his hand and led him across the lobby and onto an elevator. As the doors closed behind him, he took my waist in his hands and kissed me delicately. I could tell he was used to making out with teenagers. It was about time I taught my little boy how to be bad…

_I just wanna use your love_

I dug my fingernails into his back. He gasped and winced in pain. I grinned and let him kiss me harder, but he still wasn't getting the point. Frustrated, I shoved him into the closed doors by his shirt. He narrowed his eyes and I let go of him, backing up to the opposite wall. He lunged at me, sliding his hands down under my skirt and lifting me up onto his pelvis… after that,

_Tonight!_

all

_Tonight!_

bets

_Tonight!_

were

_Tonight!_

off.

_Tonight!_

**Shuffling…**

**All the Lovers by Kylie Minogue**

_Dance… _

It happened at the speed of lust. I'm not even sure how we got down the hall and into my bedroom, but once we were there, the night seemed to go on and on and on and on.

_It's all I wanna do, so won't you dance?_

We both shivered and held ourselves as tightly as we could. It was so cold outside for August, but neither of us had expected what the Palm Woods' pool would become without the friendly company of sunlight to warm it. Ice fishing would have been a more appropriate activity than skinny dipping by far.

_I'm standing here with you. Why won't you move?_

As soon as we were in there, we looked at each other and understood that we needed to get out. We laughed the whole time as our stiff bodies attempted to free themselves from the frigid trap and our teeth chattered like woodpeckers on a tree. I took in Jo's naked body in all its heavenly glory. I was too damn cold to feel anything, but in my mind fireworks were going off. For the moment, I was having the most fun I think I'd ever had. I had been so honestly alone for so long that the concept of unbridled fun had escaped me. When Jo finally found her way to the underwater stairs and lifted herself up onto the deck, I locked all my memories from the previous three hours away in the mental vault inside all of us that holds those few things that we can never, ever stand to forget… because they make us who we are. It latched shut, just like that, as she found a towel and hastily wrapped it around herself to try to keep warm.

_I'll get inside your groove 'cause I'm on fire, fire, fire, fire!_

James' body wasn't the only thing being devirginized that night. I felt a kind of strange remorse to be doing what we were doing in my room at our Palm Woods apartment. I looked around. I saw my daughter's bed. Katie and I shared that room. We spent our time there bonding and making sweet memories, not the kind of memories I was making with James but the kind that belong in a scrapbook once you're _really_ old and have time for that kind of stuff. I could honestly say I had never had a single sexual thought while in that room, and now look at me. It was a safe, quiet, girly place away from all the ruckus that the boys made daily. And now James was in there ruining everything. I would never be able to look at it the same way again. It was like having sex in a church for me. After all, my religion had been Katie ever since she was born, but especially since Kyle… God, why did I have to think his name?

_It hurts… when you get too close, but baby it hurts!_

I bundled up in a couple of towels too and sat down next to Jo. We sat there shivering and giggling for a few minutes before she began to look at me longingly.

"Camille… can we get closer? Please? It would be so much better if we were… touching… y'know, to share body heat and stuff…" Obviously, I was happy to oblige. We sat with our arms around each other and then Jo gently willed be backward so that we were lying on our backs on the pool chairs. There were no stars, of course. Just the rusty orange clouds over L.A. and the murky, veiled face glowing magnanimously behind. But in my mind, the fireworks had turned to supernovas.

_If love is really good, you just want more… even if it throws you to the fire, fire, fire, fire._

I clenched my eyes shut and tried to kill his face in my mind. Every time I was given pleasure, it was soured by the pain of Kyle's body rotting somewhere far away, deep underground. What stupid creatures we are, never able to let go of the past. I never told James to stop, but I didn't enjoy myself much once my old life came back to haunt me. Some widows might have determined that they couldn't continue such an affair because of the irrational guilt that would eat them alive, but I decided then and there that I couldn't continue having such irrational guilt eating me alive in favor of such an affair.

_All the lovers that have come before… they don't compare to you._

I was emancipating myself from all of it. The past isn't some burden I have to bear, some punishment that never stops coming. It was all just preparation for right now. I realized that when it was all over and James was lying beside me, apparently sleeping. I was never meant to be anything more than a woman with animal desires seeking pleasure from any and every possible source in the present for as long as it lasted. Before I was a mother, a wife, a girl, even a human I was just an animal. And animals always look out for number one. That's the were-cougar's mantra.

_Don't be running! Just give me a little bit more…_

I was about to fall asleep in Jo's lovely embrace, allowing transcendent euphoria and peace to overcome the wholeness of my soul, when I heard the doors from the lobby open and a rough dragging noise come out onto the patio. I shot up to a sitting position and saw Mr. Bitters, a tarp and a sloppily wrapped human body. Jo was already looking at him. She sat up slowly, both of us frozen with total deer-in-the-headlights fear. Why? Because Bitters was giving us the exact same look, but he was holding a hammer. He dropped the front of the tarp and the head of the body landed on the concrete with a messy watermelon sound. And then he started to move.

_They don't compare… all the lovers._

***Karaoke Star***

**Powering down…**


	7. Chapter 7

**Nicole's POV**

I looked out over the dance floor from the VIP balcony. There was a separation beginning and traveling through the crowd like a blood clot. I squinted to make out what was happening. Some unbelievably massive figure seemed to be cleaving the group in half with his bare hands. Finally, I could make out his face once he was within twenty feet of the DJ. It was Freight Train, Gustavo's left hand. That could only mean one thing: Big Time Rush was in Club 'Cuda. I was stricken with fear. Of all the nights to show up here, they had chosen the very worst one. I bolted down the staircase to the ground level. I wondered if I could get to them in time… before they put everyone's lives at great risk.

**Freight Train's POV**

I didn't have any time to spare on courtesy. The music was too loud for any of my exclamations of "Excuse me!" or "Make way!" to be heard, so I simply focused my strength and girth and drilled through the mass of punks, hipsters and Hollywood aristocracy to get to the DJ's booth. We only had thirty minutes to retrieve James from this unscrupulous quagmire according to Gustavo's orders, and I didn't have a doubt in my shiny head that the pretty boy could spend every one of them arguing about why he had the right to stay. So we needed to find him. Having done my part of the job and seeing a staircase up to the booth once we arrived there, I left it up to Carlos and Logan to get a hold on the microphone and page James (just like at Dillard's—obviously Kendall has no idea how these things are done). After a few seconds of them disappearing into the DJ's booth:

"James Diamond to the principal's office! James Diamond to the principal's office thank you."

I heard heavy breathing and looked to my right to see Nicole Scherzinger standing beside me bleeding an air of complete alarm and disdain. Before I could say anything to her, Carlos rushed back down the stairs to us looking quite proud of his achievement. There's no way James could've mistaken that it was Carlos on the loudspeaker with the goofy way he had spoken. Logan slinked moodily behind.

"Hey Nicole! Long time no see what's happenin' girlfriend—" Carlos started to gush.

"Hush, hush!" she hissed and put her finger on his mouth to silence him, looking around. "We need to get out of here _NOW_. Where are my dolls…?" she asked herself worriedly.

"Scherzinger." An icy cold voice cut through the general buzz and the blaring techno. The pop star closed her eyes and turned slowly toward it, as if facing her executioner.

"Amber, I can explain—"

Amber put her hand up as the universal "words aren't gonna cut it" gesture.

"I thought we said no funny business tonight Scherzinger. I and my girls came here to party. We never wanted to have to put our boots on and _stomp _you. But I guess that's how it's going down…"

"No, it ain't anything like that!"

"Huh? Are you saying these dudes ain't with you?"

"Well, we are friends and all but it ain't like they wanted to stir things up…"

"Too bad! When you start trouble with the bitches, you get it back seven times stronger." As she said so, six girls appeared behind her dressed from head to toe in black leather with blond hair and bright pink lipstick. Nicole looked like a moose facing a pack of timber wolves. "Besides, I've been feeling like pounding your ass into the floor ever since I saw you trying to creep out the back door behind my back with your skanky hoes in tow."

Nicole grimaced. Even while the impending altercation became apparent to many of the surrounding partiers, who took their drinks and migrated, none of the Pussycat Dolls had appeared from the shadows as Amber's friends had.

"Who are these girls?" Carlos asked as if he thought they were a joke.

"The Barbie Bitches. Back when I and the dolls was just a street dance crew here in L.A., they were our bitter rivals. We battled endlessly, always allowing the dance-offs to end in a draw for the sake of the crowd's safety. But one night, we didn't stop. The battle kept escalating to greater and greater degrees of showmanship and exertion and it went on for hours. Amber wanted to win so badly. Wanting to finish them off, we tried to do a triple helicopter girl, but Melody sprained her ankle on the dismount, so we threw in the towel. Amber made a huge spectacle of it, humiliating us and spreading the word around town that the Pussycat Dolls couldn't dance. In hopes to stop the rumor, we organized our biggest battle yet on the rooftop of this very club. I had to hand it to them, the bitches knew their routine. The Club 'Cuda judges pronounced them the winners in the second round. After that, we could never show our faces on the streets of L.A. again as a dance crew. The dolls almost died, but Gustavo took pity on us. He found us. He said that we were barking up the wrong tree, that our dancing was lackluster but our singing was phenomenal. Finally, we had something that the Barbie Bitches didn't.

"Even though things didn't work out with the album Gustavo tried to help us produce, and there's bad blood between the two of us because of it, me and all the girls will always be grateful to him for what he did. He has a heart of gold underneath all of that tacky fool's gold bling and polyester. We took the demos we made with him and they helped us get the contract that we made our first single on. We almost forgot about the Barbie Bitches until we encountered them at a club here in town one night and realized that they hated us much more than ever now that they had to hear us on the radio every day, succeeding on a level that they will never reach. Amber, in an uncharacteristically level-headed demeanor, said that they were willing coexist with us in clubs and at parties as long as we never used our notoriety to publicly defame them. But I always knew that she was just waiting to battle us again… to show us that the bitches always were, and will always be the sickest dancers in L.A. To prove that her group still has a foothold in their own little world. The thing is, all of the original dolls that I used to fight the bitches with back in the day are gone… and the new girls in the group just don't understand what would happen to us if we battled them now. I was thinking that I would have to keep them from meeting the bitches to protect them from their own cockiness, but it would seem that they made their way out all on their own… without even bothering to get me first."

Carlos, me and even the previously apathetic Logan were all regarding Nicole with the deepest of concern now and longed to help her, but we knew that the only thing that was going to end this estrogen-drunk brawl now was an explosion of crunk that would make Hiroshima and Nagasaki run for the Beverly Hills and huddle together for relief from the terror. Carlos was an okay dancer and Logan knew a few gimmicky moves, but we wouldn't last five seconds across from the badass Barbie Bitches that were shooting flaming daggers at us from across an ominously empty space on the dance floor. Nicole turned to face them again. I could only imagine how pathetic the four of us looked to the predacious tigresses in their perfect formation. Easy prey, more of a midnight snack than a fourthmeal.

**Carlos' POV**

On a certain level, what Nicole was telling me seemed hilariously petty and overdramatic, but once I saw how much it meant to her, I felt like I needed to do something. I looked at Logan, who was standing close to me but a few inches behind so that we couldn't make eye contact. He had taken off his ridiculous sunglasses. He still seemed angry at me, but he also seemed bashful at being taken off guard, and for a moment I thought I saw through what seemed to me at the time a defense mechanism to ensure his continued denial of his own feelings. It turned out to be much simpler than that. He was just like me; he had a fire burning in his head, not strong enough to inflame all of his thoughts but just enough to choke his whole brain with thick smoke. One thing was for sure: that feeling was coming from the identical fortunes in both our pockets. I remembered how adamant I had been about the truth and power of the fortune cookies at dinner, and it stuck me how much I wished I hadn't built them up. It struck me how foolish I had been to believe in something without having really encountered it. I just wished that the fortunes were nothing but slips of paper. I just wished that everything Logan had said was right. It usually was… but this time it wasn't. My constant desire to plant one on his face proved that well enough. Logan looked past me at the Barbie Bitches, but I spoke to him anyway. I was shocked at the melancholy in my own voice.

"I wish I knew what I did to make you hate me so much, Logan…" it hadn't been what I wanted to say, but it was the only thing my mouth would allow me to say. Logan replied fast and sharp like the crack of a razor-edged whip.

"I wish I knew what I did to make you so _obsessed_ with me!" he put his hands on his forehead and slid them upward through his hair. "I just can't take it Carlos. Nobody's ever looked at me the way you're looking at me right now. Why can't things be normal again? I don't know how to deal with you right now. I could handle normal. I could handle just friends, no feelings. I've gone through my whole life without ever really having feelings for anyone, and you're just ruining my cool! The truth is that I don't know how to love you, or myself, or anyone else! The only thing I ever learned to love was books. The nervous system, the amazon rainforest, the composition of gas giants… these are things I can love. Because they don't love back. And because on a certain level, I can't imagine why anyone would ever love me at all."

I felt terrible, because I knew that as soon as he said that I couldn't help but give him a look more loving than any one I had ever given in all my life. Logan was crying bitter tears. I wanted desperately to take him outside so that we could get some peace and quiet but alas, Amber was done waiting on us…

"Enough stalling Scherzinger! Are you going to battle us one last time… or are you going to back down like you always do?" Nicole took a few steps forward into the empty space that the crowd had wittily made for the dance battle.

"I won't back down. No way. I've got nothing to lose, and putting the beat-down on bitches is something not, uh… _entirely_ out of my experience." She cracked her knuckles and did a few stretches to show off her long, perfectly tanned legs. Freight Train took her by the arm.

"Are you crazy Nicole? You're risking everything here! The people you grew up with will hear about this. Your parents and cousins will hear about this. The bitches will always be able to say that this is their town." I cocked my head at him. Freight Train had never shown any real passion in his speech before, though he showed a lot of attitude. I got the feeling that he not only understood exactly what he was talking about, but that he was actually speaking from some long buried perspective of his _own_ experience. Nicole smiled her smooth, sly smile.

"Who said I was gonna lose, Freight baby?" she looked at us. "Carlos? Logan? Get limber and get your sexy asses on the floor." I looked at him. I was about to say that he didn't have to dance, but he wiped his tears away and nodded to Nicole confidently. He looked at me and his face twisted several times before achieving a smile through all the sadness, confusion, anger and angst.

"Let's do it Carlos." He reached out his hand to me and I took it. He still couldn't stand to have anything to do with me, but at a time when you're dancing for your life it's a good feeling to know that someone loves you and has your back. We charged into the fray together. We only let our hands separate once Logan took position at Nicole's left and I stood to her right. She looked at him and then at me and faced forward as she spoke at a volume just loud enough for both of us to hear, all while maintaining a seamless poker face for Amber and the bitches.

"Alright boys, we're at the bottom of the ninth and we've got no one to save us from seventy bitchy claws ravenous for soft flesh to tear. Obviously we can't beat them at dancing… I mean I've been known to pump up the glam solo-round every once in a while but I've seen y'all onstage and you've got about fourteen left feet apiece. So if we have a prayer of winning, I wager that that hope lies in doing the one thing that set the three of us free and brought us up out of obscurity to be who we are today. We do the one thing that the bitches have always blown at the most. We do the one thing that makes us better than the Barbie Bitches."

"Having Wikipedia articles and IMDB pages written about us?" I guessed.

"No, honey." She turned to Logan and whispered something in his ear. He smiled and nodded. Then the music started and he stepped up in front.

"I know what it takes… and I won't hesitate. I thought I'd told you not to call, 'cause I don't care at all." I was ecstatic. Logan was putting more moxie into his voice than I had ever heard before. Hearing him diss the bitches gave rise to a wave of love inside of me that almost knocked me off my feet. Jeez, having feelings sure is distracting. Regardless, I knew and loved this song so when Logan stepped back I knew what part to take up.

"Here's my point of view: I'm all through with you!" I sang and looked back at Logan for a moment. He was beaming. Then I returned to the disgusted faces before me. "Guess there's nothing left to say… and I'm not gonna wait." I hopped back as Nicole catwalked forward and but her voice on blast.

"'Cause I'm alright, _yeah, yeah! _And I don't mind, _yeah, yeah! _Baby you're no longer creeping in my head! And I'm okay, _yeah, yeah! _I'm on my way, _yeah, yeah!_ And it's time for me to face that perfect day!" she sang while making taunting gestures and getting as much into the bitches' faces as she dared (their nails_ were_ pretty long). Amber snarled and made a "kill it" motion by swishing her hand in front of her throat at the DJ. Apparently she intimidated him, because the music faded quickly.

"That's all fine and well, Scherzinger and gay buddies, but this is a dance-off and you were supposed to _DANCE!" _she screeched at her greatest possible volume and hoarseness. Then, the most fabulous voice that I, Logan, Nicole or Freight Train had ever heard rang out across the silenced Club 'Cuda.

"Did someone say _dance?"_ we all looked to the entrance of the club where a man stood with legs spread and arms crossed.

"Mr. X!" I cried happily.

"Hello Carlos. Sorry to interrupt, but when I heard that there was a dance-off at Club 'Cuda, I simply could not resist attending." He strutted down the floor past the bitches to stand by our side.

"Mr. X, you have to save us, these bitches are about to thrash us up in this dance battle and we have no choreography."

"Hush, my child, I know everything. Just _stop _your fretting and **dance** like _this…_"

It was all a blur. Mr. X started to dance and we followed suit. Soon we were grooving so fabulously that sparks shot from our shoes and glitter flew outward from us in dazzling wisps. I couldn't describe to you what he showed us if I tried. It seemed as if we were of one mind, one body, and one spirit on the dance floor. We became a disco vortex, sucking all the pride and energy from every onlooker and absorbing it into our routine. The Barbie Bitches didn't stand a chance. They knew they were outdone before we even had the chance to finish, and they left the club in a hurry without looking back. We stopped dancing and brought each other into a group hug, holding each other up from falling over due to dizziness and fatigue at the same time. We were all smiles for a minute.

"Thank you Mr. X." I said earnestly. Logan and Nicole expressed the same sentiment.

"Do not mention it, lovely comrades. I live to dance, just as you live to sing. One need not thank the phoenix for the rainbow it leaves in its wake…!" he said dramatically, saluted us all and strutted back out of the club just as sassily as he had come in. It seemed as if he had somewhere else to be every time he graced us with his presence. I couldn't possibly imagine how fabulous that place must be. Or perhaps he leaves in such a hurry because he has a hundred more citizens in distress to save through dance before the night is through…? Nicole turned to us and shrugged.

"I never thought things would turn out this way guys. I'm sorry for ruining your night out with all this drama."

Logan shook his head quickly. "Oh no, we didn't come here to party. We came in looking for James. Have you seen him?"

"No, man. If he was in the club I would've been informed. Divas like me have eyes all over a club at any time."

"So… I guess we came in here for nothing." I said, downtrodden.

"Y'all came in here for a lot more than nothing, Carlos. You just lifted a monkey off my back that's been chewing on me for years. The dolls and I will be able to enjoy the nightlife a lot more without having to look over our shoulders for the Barbie Bitches from now on. And I thank y'all for that. For sticking by me, even though we hardly know each other."

"Sticking by you… you mean the way your dolls didn't?" Logan reminded her.

"Oh damn, that's right! Where did those skanks go, anyway? They'd better not have hijacked the limo! Hey guys, I gotta split, but it's been fun! Call me, we'll go out again sometime!" she kissed Logan on the cheek and whispered in my ear when we got close. "He'll come around, boo. Just don't give up on him. You guys are good together." I smiled and she kissed me on the cheek too before jogging out the doors to find her abandoning band members. Logan turned to me and I was about to talk again when Gustavo was heard calling for his dogs. Freight Train headed for the doors and beckoned for us to follow. Once we were all back in the limo, Kendall and Katie with full ice cream mustaches and beards, Gustavo rolled down the interior window and asked the expected question:

"Where's James?"

"He wasn't in there." Freight Train said apologetically.

"He wasn't in there? Then what have you three been DOING this whole time!" he shouted.

"You wouldn't believe us if we told you." I stated simply.

Gustavo regarded us without amusement. "Fine. Whatever. Let James do whatever he wants tonight; he'll be hearing from me TOMORROW!"

Gustavo was reminded of the meeting we were supposed to have at his office that night, but he shrugged it off. As disappointed as we were to have our supposed weekend off tainted by a meeting the next day, we all agreed that we were too tired to stand doing anything else besides going home.

"With James and Kelly being no-shows, it just isn't worth it right now…" he added in a strangely solemn way. I wanted to speak my mind all the way to the Palm Woods, but I couldn't with everyone else in the limo. I realized that I would have to wait until a good time the next day. That's basically how that Friday night ended for us. Gustavo dropped us off at the Palm Woods and we all went into the dark lobby without noticing anything strange. Granted, the lights usually weren't turned off in the lobby when we got home, but we usually didn't get home that late, so we all accepted that along with the unsettling absence of Bitters. When we got up to the apartment, Kendall told Katie that she probably shouldn't wake their mom up at this hour or else she would be super mad about how late they had stayed out and punish us all. She agreed reluctantly to sleep on the couch, grumbling about how we boys were always getting her in trouble, keeping her up late, taking her places she didn't want to go, etc. But we knew she had had fun. I watched Logan disappear into his bedroom with Kendall and felt an intense longing to be the one sleeping with him, keeping him close and quieting his fears all through the night. I had never realized how vulnerable Logan was, and it only made me want him more. I wanted him so bad, I lied awake all night alone thinking about it. Every time my mind would wander back to what happened in the limo after dinner, my heart would soar, my pulse would quicken and I would be consumed by such happiness that I laughed out loud into my pillow several times, hoping that they didn't hear me in the other room and think I was going mad.

**Freight Train's POV**

I smiled as I sat alone in my apartment and reminisced on the last couple of hours. I had really had fun at the club. It kind of made me wonder what I had been doing lately in my life that made having fun seem like such a strange thing. I doubted that anyone could have noticed that I was enjoying myself; I had taught myself long and hard to pull all emotion from my visage. I was happy that Logan, Carlos and Nicole would always think that Mr. X came to their rescue purely by fate and his own deftness of intuition, as it was surely a romantic thought… _But when you've been through what I've been through, you start to know better. _I thought as I took the peculiar cell phone which had been of such use out of my pocket and placed it on the bedside table. There was no keypad on the device, but simply a large black button in the middle where the keypad ought to be. It was in the shape of an X.

If you love Cascada as much as I do, give yourself a high-five becaue you ROCK! Lol but also ask any questions that you have in a review and I'll answer them unless it's a spoiler request! ;D I love you all for reading and... I guess that's it! Also thanks to Isabella your story was sad but cute at the same time haha is that wrong? Anyway, mwah and goodnight! *Champagne Diamond*


	8. Chapter 8

**Disembodied POV**

I had been dead for hours. Imagine my surprise when, after falling as far into the void as my consciousness could bear, something real came to my eyes. Blurry at first, but as it faded into place before me it actually became clearer than anything I'd ever seen. My vision had never been very good, but my parents had always told me to squint and suck it up because glasses were expensive. The scene before me was crystal clear and sharp as a blade. The light of six in the morning was oozing from the glass wall behind me. Despite my own blood being streaked across the tile floor, the lobby of the Palm Woods appeared to me in that moment as the hall of heaven. Without wanting to move, my point of view traveled down the hall and up through the ceiling so that I found myself floating before a door marked "2J". I remember thinking that I couldn't get in and that that was a shame, and my point of view responded by phasing me through the door and handing me the reins.

I floated over to the first door that I saw, and then poked my head through the door to see who was sleeping inside. It was the boy that I talked to outside the Glory Panda the night before. He looked really sweet. I felt like I wanted to cry for not being able to touch his face or greet him good morning, but I knew that there were no tears in my eyes, no eyes in my sockets, no sockets in my head, no head on my shoulders, no shoulders on my body, no body. I wondered what Mr. Bitters did with my body. I didn't feel angry about being murdered at that moment. All I could feel was sadness and infinite love for people that I'd barely met except for serving them drinks at the restaurant the night before. I wanted to be with them forever. They seemed so different from the family I'd grown up with. I realized that I hadn't even grown up with a family. I'd never had one at all. A family was a big knot of love that went through life comforting its own. That's all I'd ever really needed.

The boy in the other room was alone. He wasn't asleep. He was staring at the ceiling. I floated to his bedside and stared into his glazed-over chestnut eyes. He looked at me for a second and I saw a shiver run through his body. He just shook his head and mumbled something to himself, getting up out of his bed and stepping through me to go to the bathroom. I followed him out but stopped at the bathroom door once it closed. _No, _I thought, _I shouldn't abuse my ghostly privileges no matter how much I want to._ I went to the third bedroom door and poked my head through it. I gasped at what I saw. One of the teenage boys was in bed with his mom! Well, that probably wasn't _his_ mom, I mean she couldn't be all of the boys' mom, but she was obviously the only adult in the situation. I guessed there really was a lot of love to go around in this family. The woman sat up in bed and looked at me nervously. I blushed at her naked figure and took my head out of their room.

An abrupt snore alerted me to the person on the couch. She was so small that I hadn't noticed her when I came in. I wasn't surprised to see that she was the adorable little girl that had given me that fortune on the street. I felt bad for a moment that I'd given it away despite being her "fortune buddy", and I reached for the fortune that I did have in my pocket. _My pocket? What pocket? _I looked down and there was nothing. No pocket, not even the arm that I thought I had been moving. I went and knelt at the side of the sleeping girl. _Enjoy your body… enjoy your life, and most of all, enjoy your family. _I begged her. And then I felt an irresistible suction spaghettifying my whole astral body into one tiny point in the girl's head. Then I felt my eyes open.

**Katie's POV**

I sat up on the couch and looked at my tiny hands. It felt amazing to have flesh again… not so amazing to be even shorter than I was before, but beggars can't be choosers right? I didn't know how long this would last, so I stood up quickly and hurried to the room with the two gorgeous boys sleeping in it. I knocked timidly and summoned up the most plaintive, childish voice that the girl's throat could muster.

"Big brother?" I called, feeling foolish for not knowing his name or my own. I sounded every bit like a scared chipmunk. _That should do the trick._

"Katie?" he responded. _So that's my name._ "What's wrong?"

"I…" _um… "_I have a stomachache. Mom's still asleep." I took a big risk by calling the redhead in bed with the shaggy-haired metrosexual my mother, but I figured if this girl lives with them then that must be her mother, and if this dreamboat is her brother then it's his mom too. I had the thought that their parents could be away on business or something, and that the redhead was just some crusty tramp that the boy hopped into bed with, and that actually seemed more probable. _But what if he's __**her**__ boyfriend? _That was even creepier.

"Okay… come in."

I tried not to giggle as I ran into the room and plopped down on the boy's bed. He gave me a discerning gaze. "You're not really sick, are you Katie?" I picked up one of his hands and started feeling it with mine. Fingertips on fingertips. Oh God, that felt so good! I put his palm to my face. It barely fit on my little cheek; it was so big and rough! Oh, I liked that very much! "What are you doing?" he asked, still allowing me to play with him. He was laughing. I guess it's alright for eight-year-old girls to be silly, but I wasn't really eight years old anymore, was I? What was that little body doing to me? I reached for his face and stroked it gently. Suddenly feeling me slipping away and no longer caring what happened to any of them once I was gone, I grabbed the boy's face and kissed him with all the passion that I had left. I thought it was the last time I would ever get to feel a thing. How fitting that it was my first kiss. What, you don't believe that a twenty-year-old woman has never been kissed before? Then you don't understand my life. But I don't blame you for that; I never took the time to explain it before.

**Disembodied POV**

Sure enough, when I opened my eyes they were gone, along with all the feelings of being alive. I stood and watched the boy's reaction to being kissed by his little sister. His reproach turned to concern when he realized that she had no idea why she was on his bed or kissing him at all (of course she didn't believe that she would do something like that), and he decided that she should just lay down while he went and talked to their mother. At least I had been right about those relationships. As for the other three boys, I couldn't imagine what the explanation for their presence was. There was no way they were brothers. _Unless the redhead adopted them all and she's some kind of child hoarder…_

"They're in a band together." A gruff voice from behind me said. I turned and saw a man with hair sticking out from every direction and every point on his head. He almost looked like a yeti. The way he was looking at me was very sad. I remembered suddenly that I had seen him before, yes just the night before in that very same building! He had been the only one who clapped for me when I sang my song. I took his existence for granted and continued the conversation.

"So they live _and_ work together? They must have one Hell of a foursome bromance going on… what about the redhead? Is she their manager?"

"Kind of, but not really. She's Kendall and Katie's mom and basically a surrogate mother to the rest of them."

"Kendall? Is that the name of the one with the blond highlights?"

"That's him." I rolled the name around on my tongue… or lack thereof. Kendall. Kendall! Kendall? I loved it. It was sexy and manly and really made me want flesh again. "We should leave." The man said in regards to apartment 2J. I agreed and followed him out. I had stirred up enough trouble as it was. I looked back one last time at Kendall, who was standing at his mother's bedroom door. _Thank you, Kendall._ I said. _You'd never know it, but you just granted a ghost's final wish._

We went back down to where I had first appeared in the Palm Woods lobby and the man stopped to stand next to a body on the floor.

"Is that you?" I asked.

"Yes…" he answered dreamily.

"Bitters killed you too, didn't he?"

He turned around to face me quickly, seeming to want to say something important, but instead began his story in an apologetic tone. "Yes… I'm sorry, Citrine. I shouldn't have let Reginald take you to his break room when I've seen what's happened to other girls so many times. It's just… Reggie took pity on me by even giving me this job, and he kept the threat of firing me hanging over my head every day, especially once he realized that I was savvy to the way he…"

"Raped girls in there." I finished his statement.

"Right…" the man winced and continued, "So I felt like I couldn't say anything. But ultimately, I could have prevented your death. I can never make up for that. I'm not even going to ask you to forgive me."

"Don't worry, I do forgive you. I know what kind of man you are because you clapped for me even though I didn't deserve it. You're the kind of man that I could fall in love with if we were still alive. So I forgive you. What's your name?"

"Bob."

"Finish the story, Bob. You owe it to me. Tell me how you died."

"Well, I was standing right here," he stood at the glass doors onto the patio facing into them. "looking at… the stars."

I cocked my head. "It was very overcast last night, Bob. Tell me the truth. Why not? You've got no one else to hear it and nothing left to lose."

Bob made a face and changed his story. "Okay, I was watching Jo and Camille, two of the girls that live here. They were swimming."

"Why would you be watching them if they were just swimming?"

"Okay, fine! They were skinny dipping! Happy now?"

I laughed despite myself. It was so funny that a man of Bob's age could be ashamed of watching two teenage girls run around and swim naked. That was the most natural thing in the world. It would have been strange if he didn't watch! It was also somewhat morbidly funny that it was such an activity that had been the distraction that led to Bob's demise. It was a fitting and a very excusable end for a man.

"Sorry. It's kind of funny, but I'm not laughing _at _you. Go on, please."

"Well, I heard this rough dragging coming from the other side of the lobby. When I looked, Reggie was definitely dragging something but I couldn't tell what it was. I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder, saying his name. I realized at the same instant that I had made a terrible mistake, because I recognized your bloody face half-wrapped in the tarp. But it was too late. Reggie spun around, completely terrified, and, seeing me looking at his messy handiwork, he struck me over the head with a hammer. He must have struck me dozens of more times on the back to kill me…" Bob added, pointing to the way his blood spotted his shirt. I frowned.

"I guess you were too busy watching the girls to hear my cries for help…" I said, honestly not trying to make him feel bad but just wanting him to say that he didn't hear me. He nodded. "And Jo and Camille? What do you think happened to them?" A look of alarm crossed Bob's face.

"I don't know. I hadn't thought about that yet. I guess Reggie could have gotten them too, but I pray to God they got away…"

**Dead Buddha Bob's POV**

Citrine's beauty had only increased since her death. I wanted to hold her, but I knew that that was impossible without my body… though it surely would have been impossible whether we were alive or not. She would always be unattainable to me… but I deserved that fate after I allowed her to die at Reginald's grubby hands. My only hope for peace of mind at that point was to try to help her in whatever way I could.

"Did he do it on purpose?" I asked her. I knew it sounded stupid.

"What do you mean?"

"When Reggie killed me, he seemed so scared, I… I guess I was just wondering if he meant to kill you. But I doubt you could answer that question and I shouldn't have asked it."

"No, it's a fair question. Mr. Bitters was very scared when he killed me, too. He's just a pathetic, ignorant, scared little man. There are invalids and crazy people that could be more rightfully punished for murder than that imbecile. I guess he just didn't expect things to go down the way they did. I'm sure it wasn't like his other successful rapes." I wasn't quite sure what she meant.

"You mean you almost got away?"

"Sure, and with a broken leg, too; that was part of it. But he did me in with the coffee pot. I was delirious enough to think that he would help me up off the ground and see the error of his ways, but alas!" she forced a weak smile. How strange.

"That explains the smell." I commented glumly.

"Oh, my corpse must have reeked of it! What a nasty condition to be found in. Though I suppose that most corpses are found in nasty conditions. I just hope they don't think I was an unclean person for smelling of burnt black coffee." Just then, a pretty black lady wearing a powder blue business suit and gray pumps came through the patio doors. Citrine and I stepped back to let her discover my body.

**Kendall's POV**

I stared at my sister. I couldn't believe it. Of course she had kissed me on the lips before, it wasn't that weird for little sisters to do that though she had been getting less affectionate since we moved to California and I could tell she was growing up fast. But even I know that there is a big difference between a kiss and a **KISS.** Words don't do it justice. All I know is that Katie kissed me like I was the last man on Earth. She kissed me like I was Jack and she was Rose and I was sliding down into the icy Atlantic before her desolate eyes. Thank God Logan was asleep or at least pretending to be across the room.

"Katie, what are you doing!" I exclaimed, wiping her spit from my mouth. She just stared at me blankly, then blinked several times and her expression was completely different. "Why did you kiss me?" I demanded.

"What do you mean by that, shoehorn? I didn't kiss anybody!"

"Yes you did! You just kissed me wet and hard on the lips!" Katie scowled and got up off of my bed.

"I don't know what kind of trick you're trying to pull here, but I don't swing that way. How did I end up in here, anyway?"

"So you really don't remember anything that just happened?"

"The last thing I remember is being asleep on the couch!"

"Okay, this is weird. You must have been sleepwalking or something. This has never happened before. I think I'd better go talk to mom about it. C'mon, you should lie back down." I led her back into the living room and she lay down without protest. She was very confused, and I was even more concerned. I knocked on our mom's bedroom door.

"Mom? Are you up yet? I think there might be something wrong with Katie…" I realized that I had forgotten to set my alarm for the meeting that morning, and that Katie had gotten me up at just the right time as if by some miraculously fortuitous coincidence. I needed to get the others up too. Kelly would probably be showing up any minute and they were still asleep. I heard a lot of ruffling of sheets on the other side.

"What? Is she sick? She didn't hurt herself did she?" my mom sounded very flustered.

"No, it's nothing like that; I just think she might have been… sleepwalking." My mom opened the door a crack. She was hastily tying her bathrobe. This was very unlike her. She always slept fully clothed in case of a house fire and was basically impossible to catch off guard.

"Sleepwalking? Are you serious? Move!" she said and waved me out of the way so that she could slide through the thin opening in the doorway and quickly shut the door behind her. She went to Katie. I looked at the closed door and, deciding my mother's motives were not to be questioned, went into my room to grab a towel and some clothes for the shower and to wake Logan up. I noticed that the bathroom door was closed and tried the knob, which was locked.

"Carlos? Are you in there?"

"Yup! Oh, sorry! Is it time to get ready for the meeting already?"

"Yeah, Carlos how long have you been in there?"

"I… I dunno. I think I might've fallen asleep on the toilet."

I laughed. "Okie dokie Carlos, you just come on out whenever you're ready." I started to leave. "Oh Carlos, by the way did James ever come home last night?"

"No man and I haven't heard from him either."

"Huh… neither have I. I wonder if he—" that was when the doorbell rang. I went to answer it, seeing that my mother and Katie were talking. What met me on the other side was quite a sight to behold. Kelly Wainwright's face was streaked with tears, her makeup running, and her hands shaking horribly. She came inside quickly and sat on a chair, trying to calm down.

"Kelly, what happened?"

"(sniffle) Oh Kendall, it's terrible, so awful!"

"What?"

"B-B-Buddha Bob. He's… dead!"

**Disembodied POV**

Kendall, Carlos, Logan and Kelly (Bob was kind enough to tell me the names of the other three) were all standing in the lobby talking nervously amongst themselves when the police arrived. The detectives said that they had to leave, and I followed them out onto the patio. Bob wanted to stay inside and watch what the police did with his body, naturally. It's easy to get defensive when people are touching you all over without asking for any consent.

"I just can't believe it… he lay there all night long. We walked right past him when we got home last night. We were too tired to notice the blood all over the floor…" Logan choked up, I imagined due in part to disgust and in part to lament for the death of their benevolent groundskeeper. Carlos took his band mate's head and cushioned it on his chest. Logan seemed all the more miserable for not having the will to refuse the gesture, for needing it so much that he couldn't think about whether he wanted it or not. It didn't take a mighty gaydar to discern that those two were out of the friend zone… but still floating somewhere in the gray area manufactured by pickiness and reluctance.

"Kelly… what's that on your face?" Kendall asked her. She responded frantically.

"Oh, it's just where my makeup was running from when I was crying, isn't it? No big deal, I'll do it again in the limo on our way to the meeting…"

"No, Kelly, it's underneath all the makeup…" he put his hand on her face and she flinched. "Does it hurt?" she shook her head violently.

"Just _back off_, okay? There's nothing wrong with me and I don't need your help. I didn't need you last night and I definitely don't need you now. So just… back off, okay?" The last word was nothing but a whimper. She stared at the ground and held herself protectively. Kendall was smart and had an instinct to save others that came from his own level-headedness and self-security. He hypnotized me. I had no power within me that could resist the urge to just stare at him and imagine our life together, everything we could have had, everything we could have done. Picnics in gloriously blooming gardens in the bright sunlight, serene walks on the beach beside the placid sea under overcast skies, endless nights of love-making beside a roaring fire in a state of such comfort that melts the heart into a velvety puddle and sets the soul high upon a pedestal of ecstasy. That describes just the highlights of my fabricated life as Citrine Knight. He was perfect to be the leader of the group. He was so strong, so intensely perfect, so everything-I'd-ever-wanted. He wanted to help Kelly out because goodness was all that he knew, and the voice of justice was robust within him. My God, he was my Superman. I had a Lois Lane complex.

When I saw that they were all moping away from the Palm Woods to get in their limo on the street, needing to get to their meeting despite wanting to follow developments on the investigation of Bob's murder, I knew I had to go with them. Something compelled me to. It was probably nothing more than fan girl lust. I looked back at the lobby for a moment, thinking about Bob and his loneliness on the astral plane, but I erased all worriedness from my mind. If he survived death, he would survive my absence. I doubted that I would have any difficulty finding him when we returned. I phased into the limo just before it pulled into traffic and found myself more or less sitting on Kendall's lap. I would have blushed (if I had had cheeks) at first and started to will myself off of him, but that was before I realized that I could feel something. I couldn't feel anything in a physical sense as I had no skin, but spiritual energy gave me a very similar and in fact better sensation. Kendall's aura was warming me. I hadn't even noticed how profoundly cold I had been before, but his hot aura was giving me spiritual gooseflesh. Wanting as much of this feeling as possible, I slid my phantom hands under his thighs and put my illusory head on his shoulder so that our necks were touching. _I could get used to this. _I thought dreamily. _I know a man this gorgeous would never let me tangle myself around him in real life, so maybe being a ghost is kinda fun._ His spiritual breath was particularly enjoyable on my face, and I found that I could inhale it for an extra high, even though I didn't need to breathe otherwise.

There wasn't much talking during the limo ride to the record company. It was still really early and the discovery of the body had put a shock to their systems. Kelly applied copious amounts of makeup at a furious rate to try to cover up the hideous and grossly obvious pink and purple welts on her face which everyone had already noticed but was too preoccupied to concern themselves with, and Carlos stared at Logan fixatedly from across the compartment while Logan seemed to be fixated on the furballs in the carpet. When we pulled up outside, I gasped. **Rocque Records**, a sign read. So Big Time Rush's manager was _the_ Gustavo Rocque? The very same man that I had always aspired to meet and record music with, to be one of his famous salvaged "diamonds in the rough"? I had butterflies. The day after the last day of my life was turning out to be the best day of my life… or wasn't it? I lazily rode Kendall piggyback up the stairs and to the front doors of the impressive building with Carlos, Logan and Kelly all around as the limo sped away to who knows where. When we reached the large front doors, what we saw on the stoop froze all of our faces solid with complete incredulity and horror, but none more than mine. Our group had found lucky corpse number two within an hour of the first, and I found myself looking down into my own pale, mangled face.


	9. Chapter 9

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

"Katie, sweetie? What's wrong?"

"I feel funny. I woke up sitting on Kendall's bed with him yelling at me about kissing him."

"Yeah, he said he thinks you were sleepwalking. That's what it sounds like to me too." I put my hand under her cutely cut bangs and felt her forehead. It wasn't hot at all. In fact, it was very cold. My daughter didn't look good. She didn't just look sick. She looked somehow… damaged. Not physically damaged but emotionally damaged. In her eyes she had the look of being lost. Even when my daughter was sick, she was lively in spirit. But I had the spine-tingling sensation of staring into the eyes of a dowager on her deathbed. She was allowing her face to sag in an unnatural way.

"I can see both of us, mommy… I'm on the ceiling, I'm watching us talk…" she mumbled in a more and more distant voice. She was getting delirious. I started to panic.

"Just hold on sweetie, I'm going to go get some soup and blankets! You're gonna be okay!" the doorbell rang. Kendall went to answer it and I rushed into the kitchen, put a saucepan on the range and emptied a can of Campbell's into it.

"(sniffle) Oh Kendall, it's terrible, so awful!"

"What?"

"B-B-Buddha Bob. He's… dead!" I reentered the living room with a wad of blankets towering three feet over my head and dropped them all on the floor beside the couch.

"Are you serious?" I asked.

"Of course I'm serious!" she yelled manically, "His corpse is laying face-down in the middle of the lobby!" at this explosion, Logan entered the room.

"Whose corpse?" he asked, looking at the three of us alternately.

"Buddha Bob." Kendall said over his shoulder, and then turned to Kelly. "Is there any blood?"

"Is there any _blood_!" she repeated, "Only enough to make a pot of Buddha Bob Chili!"

Kendall took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. "Hello, I'm at the Palm Woods Hotel. I think someone's been murdered in the lobby." I gulped and looked at Katie. Her eyes were closed. Thank God she wasn't hearing any of this. She had loved Buddha Bob. I picked up her wee clammy body and began to swaddle it in blanket after blanket until I had expended a dozen and still had a couple to spare. She looked like an immense caterpillar. All I wanted was for her to turn into the butterfly she was meant to be without any of this shitty Hollywood drama ruining her development. Kelly just sat near us in a chair with her head in her hands. A few minutes later, the boys appeared and told Kelly that they were ready to go down to the lobby.

"Are you sure you wanna see? We could wait until they take him away…" Kelly started.

"We're big boys Kelly. We can handle it. We wanna see." Carlos insisted. She nodded and got up. They all said goodbye to me and left. None of them even looked at Katie. She could be dying for all I knew! They didn't even notice! They must have thought she was sleeping and I was just the girl who cried wolf over the whole thing, seeing as I wrapped Katie up in my motherly cocoon about once a week. Right then, I didn't give a shit about how Buddha Bob died. I needed to know what on Earth was happening to my little girl. I picked up the cordless phone and knew just who to speed dial.

"Hello? Dr. Hollywood? I need your help. There's something seriously wrong with my daughter."

"Calm down, Mrs. Knight. I'm at the Sunset Café having my morning coffee. Why don't you sit down with me and we'll talk about it. Come on over."

"But doctor, I can't leave her alone like this!"

"Well I'm certainly not leaving the peace of this glorious beachside terrace to make a house call, so… it's up to you. Come to me or find another doctor… but most of them don't give free advice like I do." I looked down at Katie. She was out like a light.

"Okay… I'm coming. But don't hold your breath! Hell hath no speed like a mother with a sick child!" I hung up and grabbed my purse from its hastily hung position on one of the bar stools. It made me think of the frenzy with which James and I had come in the night before. What if someone had been in there when we put my key in the knob and pushed our way in, already with our hands all over each other? I drew in a quick breath. Just the thought of it made me sweat. After all, we lived with four other people. We didn't know for a fact that someone wasn't there. _How stupid and childish have I been? _I admonished myself, and then a new thought came to me. _Now that I've let the boys leave without James, they'll be asking all kinds of questions about why he didn't come home last night and where he's been, questions that we can lie to but won't have any backup for our lies to. But that's not all… Oh my God! There were witnesses! Three of them! Buddha Bob saw us, but he's dead… so that just leaves Bitters and that Asian girl from karaoke._

Setting those worries aside for the time being and reminding myself that the longer I waited to get help for Katie, the worse her condition might get, I switched into turbo gear and ran to my bedroom door, opened it quickly but quietly, saw that James was still fast asleep and quite naked (I guess I really tired him out more than I meant to), closed the door again, locked it with my secret key (I might as well tell you that I hide it underneath the dish soap, where no one else would ever think to look), began to leave but then thought better of it and scribbled out a note and pinned it to the door… _just in case Katie were to wake up. I'm not taking any chances. _And then I was gone in a hot flash.

**Disembodied POV**

I watched me and my mom on the couch as I floated above. I was getting higher and higher. My mom looked really scared, and I wanted to say something to tell her I was okay, but all I could do was watch my body become unconscious as all of my will transferred to my incredibly light, invisible body where I felt nothing. I saw a thin silver cord coming out of my head that was wrapped around my ankle in a shackle. That's how I knew that I was still alive and that I could come back when I was ready. But I wasn't ready yet. There was something nagging at me, somewhere I desperately needed to go that I knew I couldn't go in the physical world. It was a place and a person that I had been thinking about nonstop since the night before.

I didn't tell Kendall when he found me because I knew that he'd just tell me not to worry about it and leave them alone, but I knew better. I knew that I could help them, and that our waitress wouldn't have been made my fortune buddy if I wasn't supposed to do something. After I gave the waitress her fortune back, I started to go back to the restaurant, but then I got curious. The spirit of my fortune was whispering in my ear, and it was telling me that I needed to find something out, and so I followed the waitress a block behind until we got to the highway, and she started to descend a weedy hill down to the side of the road. Completely intrigued, I shuffled down the hill as well, trying to obscure myself in the shrubbery as I went. Just as I was reaching the bottom, I saw the waitress hurrying back in my direction and lay flat on my back under a four foot tall feral bush and watched her pick her way back up, seeming flustered and hurried. Once she was out of sight, I went to the road and saw that there was a rusty old staircase that went from the trash- and gravel-filled cavern under the overpass up to the sidewalk above. There was an even rustier metal fence that went down across two sides all the way up so that, with the third side being up against the concrete wall, there was a peculiar cage made under the first flight of the stairs (there were three flights). I went up onto the first flight and looked down into the cage. There were big spaces between the steps. Big enough for my waist and head. And there was a little flicker of light coming from the wall underneath… so I slipped down into the cage and looked at to the left. I was shocked to see that there was an ancient iron door in the concrete wall which was completely out of sight until you were in the cage itself. I would have thought that no one had been in there for decades if there wasn't that little flicker from the slit below it. I put my hand on the latch and it creaked and whined, and as I opened the door it moaned even louder, but it was all mostly drowned out by the roar of the highway only feet away.

That's when I saw her. My first impression of the little girl just the same age as me, sitting on the dirt-caked floor and ravenously feasting on Crab Rangoon is one that I'll never forget. She had one little red Chinese lantern at her side with a real flame burning inside which barely served to light the whole room within the bridge, which looked to me like some kind of forgotten storage chamber, mostly empty but with some twisted indistinguishable objects up against the walls, mostly covered by dusty tarps. The way she looked at me made me feel like a fox down a rabbit hole. She swallowed hard the food in her mouth and licked her lips cautiously, surveying me closely.

"Hi…" I said lamely. "My name's Katie."

"I'm Peridot. Are you the police?"

"No… I'm just me."

"Okay. Why are you here?"

"I was following the girl that was just here. Does she live here with you?"

"Yes. We're best friends. Her name's Citrine. She brings me food from the restaurant that she works at. Do you have any food?"

"No, not right now." I walked slowly and timidly to her side and sat down. She seemed a little skittish, but I couldn't be afraid of her more than she was of me, and I was harmless. Her dark skin had made her look even stranger in the thick darkness, but sitting beside her in the mutual red light, I could see her friendly expression. She had some manners, so she certainly hadn't been living in this cave her whole life.

"So you're both homeless?" I asked apologetically.

"We aren't homeless! Why does everyone say that? Obviously we have a home. You're sitting in it!" she moodily bit down on one of the spires of her Crab Rangoon and it made an angry crunch that echoed all around. She looked at me sideways after a moment. "I would offer you some, but Citrine got caught taking my dinner last night and had to give it back, so…"

"That's okay, I'm full anyway. How old are you?"

"Almost nine."

"Me too. My birthday's on October 16th."

"Mine's on the twelfth!" she smiled at me in light of the similarity. I smiled too, and then shivered a little. I hadn't noticed how drafty the room was until I was already trembling. "Oh, you're cold huh? I was too, at first. But it's just your skin complaining. It gets used to the cold and stops taking being warm for granted after a while." Peridot kept digging into the bottom of the greasy paper sack before her even once she knew all of the fried hors d'oeuvres were gone. Once she had devoured every crumb, she licked her fingers again and again.

"How long have you been living here?"

"Just a few months. Before we found this place, we would sleep somewhere different every night. So I'm happy to be able to go to sleep without worrying about being found all the time. Nobody else has ever been down here yet, so I'm starting to feel safe." She smiled at me again. Her teeth were yellow and her hair was in poorly kept braids hanging every which way. She was so pitiful. I felt guilty just for having perfectly straight, white teeth and perfectly straight, clean hair. I was like a Shih Tzu and she was an orphaned dingo pup.

"Where are your parents?"

"You mean the ones that made me? How should I know? I've had dozens of parents. Citrine's my second favorite so far."

"Who's your first favorite?"

"Her name was Darcy. She told me to call her mama, and I did. She died last year. Nothing's been right since. You're not going to tell anyone about us living here, are you?"

"No… not if you don't want me to."

"I don't want you to. Also, you should go."

"Why? Don't you want some company?"

"I've learned to be alone, but you wouldn't know about that. You should go because there's someone looking for you. A girl like you couldn't be under a bridge without someone looking for her. So you should go and be found. Don't resent your warm bed tonight on my account. Just forget about me." I got up and went to the door.

"Peridot… I'm not going to forget about you. I'm going to bring you food if I can, I promise."

"You can do that if you want, but **don't **tell anyone I'm here."

"Okay. I won't." I had no intention of keeping that promise. I waved goodbye, thinking that saying the word would sound too sad, considering I was sealing her back up in a secret tomb by closing the outspoken door. I wriggled back out of the cage through the stairs and hurried back to the Glory Panda, but was intercepted a block away by my big brother.

It was Peridot that I was thinking about as I flew high above L.A. at a speed which seemed slow and fast at the same time. I knew that I was moving fast, but the world below me was being left in the past, blurry and flowing like a languid trickle of water down a muddy knoll. I stopped softly and floated down until I stood before the rusty iron fence again. I found that I could phase through, and then phase again into her room. Though I was invisible, I seemed to emit a milky bluish-white light that allowed me to see Peridot asleep on the floor, curled up into herself and shivering constantly without being bothered by it in the least. In fact, it looked like she was having a good dream. I wished there was some way I could help her without getting caught by my disapproving family, but I knew that the only power I had when I left my body was to observe. _How did I get out of my body, anyway? I remember… when I woke up on Kendall's bed, I felt outside of myself, like some kind of connection had been broken. I was still me, I was more myself than I'd ever been before, but I wasn't Katie. I was something freed that had been locked deep inside. But I do have to go back. I have to go back if I'm going to do anything about this._

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

I avoided the lobby at all costs. There was a reason that I hadn't gone to medical school, and that was because guts are gross. So I didn't want to see any. I went out the back door and around the building to get to the parking lot. I got in the driver's seat, and was about to put my key in the ignition when I heard something move in the backseat. I froze. I knew exactly what it was. Whoever killed Buddha Bob had been sitting in my car waiting for me all night long to be his second victim (or maybe his twentieth, who knows!), and now he was going to do the oldest trick in the book. I was going to adjust my rearview mirror, see his face in it (probably obscured by some ridiculous yet terrifying mask), and he was going to spring forward and slit my throat with a box cutter. The only problem was that I had stopped reading the script. I wasn't willing to go any farther. I just closed my eyes and breathed, knowing every moment was more likely to be my last.

"Mrs. Knight?"

"AHHHHHHHHH!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, which had been the only plan I'd had to subdue my killer. I flipped around in my seat and faced him.

"A-Are you okay?" the voice was no longer sleepy, as before. How could it be? All of our ears were ringing. In closed cars, blood-curdling screams turn to blow horn blasts.

"Camille? Jo? What are you doing in the backseat of my car? And why are you both wearing nothing but towels? You almost scared me to death…!" I was on the verge of tears.

"I'm sorry Mrs. Knight; we didn't even know this car was yours!" Camille apologized.

"Bitters chased us out here last night with a hammer!" Jo explained.

"Bitters… chased you? Into my car?" I couldn't take much more craziness in one morning. I hadn't even had any damned coffee yet. I really felt like going back to sleep.

"Yeah, well kind of. We were lying by the pool last night, when next thing we know Bitters comes out from the lobby with a hammer in his hand, and he was completely covered in blood!" Camille began.

"Blood and coffee!" Jo added. "And he was dragging a corpse in a tarp!"

"A _corpse?_" I asked, astonished. My first response was to think that these girls had bought some "Tylenol" for a cheap price from some guy outside the pharmacy and were tripping balls all night long, but as I rolled the idea of Bitters the skull-basher around in my head, it didn't seem that strange at all. Bitters killed Buddha Bob. Yeah, I could live with that. "Was it Buddha Bob?"

"Buddha Bob?" Camille cocked her head at me. "No, it was an Asian woman. Why would it be Buddha Bob?"

_Oh my God! _I thought. _That sick bastard killed both of them! I wonder what made old Reggie finally snap and go on a killing spree. Thank God James and I were already doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel by the time all this shit was going down. So that leaves the killer himself as the only witness to __**my **__crime. Wait, Gustavo might have seen us too! Oh great! Hey, I wonder if I could get Bitters to kill Gustavo… nope, that wouldn't work. I can't afford to knock off my landlord or my son's boss (he pays all the bills, after all)._

"Um… Mrs. Knight? Why did you think it was Buddha Bob?" Jo asked, waving her hand in front of my face.

"Oh, 'cause Buddha Bob's dead. They just found him. Apparently there's enough of him lying around the lobby right about now to make a pot of chili. Kelly's words, not mine."

The girls' jaws dropped. Jo turned to Camille and whispered, "He must have killed both of them. The body in the tarp definitely wasn't Buddha Bob."

"So what happened next? He took off after you?" I pressed.

"Oh, yeah…" Camille restarted, seeming disturbed. "He dropped the body and took off after us at a pretty pathetic hobble, but we were so scared we ran at full speed, climbed the wall and found the first unlocked car in the parking lot to hide in. In the darkness, Bitters knew he couldn't find us, and he didn't try."

"But I peeked out the window…" Jo took over, "and I saw him drag that body out to _his_ car, throw it in the trunk and drive away."

"We were too scared to leave, but we never planned on falling asleep." Camille finished.

"And what about your bathing suits?" I asked, "Did they fly off of you in your mad dash?"

"Oh, well, um…" they both stuttered and blushed.

"Never mind, I've heard enough and I probably don't want to know. To make up for almost sending me into cardiac arrest, can you two do me a favor?"

"Sure, anything!" Jo said, nodding deeply.

"Okay. Go get dressed and then go to my apartment. Here's the key." I handed it over. "Katie's alone in there, and she's very, suddenly ill. I'm going to talk to Dr. Hollywood about it right now, and I can't stand leaving her alone. So you two need to just watch her closely, and if anything happens, please call me. Okay?" They both nodded. "Good. Help yourselves to anything in the fridge except my cordial cherry cheesecake. That's for a special occasion."

"What's the occasion?" Camille asked.

"Who knows? I'm just hoping one will show up soon." I smiled, shrugged and turned back toward the steering wheel. "You can go ahead and get out now, girls." They both chirped in embarrassment and opened the doors on both sides, jumping out. I started the car and pulled out, waving at them cheerily, and then I left the parking lot. There was definitely something up with those two. I couldn't put my finger on it. Taking pride in my intuition for such things, I had always known that Jo was a lesbian, but Camille was a hard one to pin down. Their story had been generally stupid and I didn't believe it at all. I wasn't going to jump to the conclusion that they had had more to do with the murders than they were letting on, but I doubted that they had been just "lying" by the pool and that they had just "fallen asleep" in my car. I made a sticky note at a stoplight to remind me to Febreeze the backseat later on when I had the time. Teenagers. I knew what they were capable of because I was still one of them at heart. James could attest to that.

**Jo's POV**

Seeing all of the policemen standing around at the front of the Palm Woods, Camille and I decided to take the back door in. We were going to go to our separate rooms, but then we realized that our parents were home by now, and that they had heard about the murders by now, and that they were probably thinking we had been slashed as well. Trapped between wanting to relieve our parents' worry and wanting equally to avoid being punished for staying "out" all night (as if we had been partying), we decided to postpone the decision until after Mrs. Knight came back.

When we entered Apartment 2J we saw Katie entwined in one of Mrs. Knight's famous "sick wraps", completely smothered by blankets. We both laughed. Katie seemed to be sleeping peacefully, breathing normally. There was no doubt in our minds that Mrs. Knight was overreacting as usual. We went into Kendall and Logan's room to grab some clothes. Camille took a random t-shirt and pair of sweatpants from Logan's closet and went into the bathroom to change. I changed in the boys' room while she talked to me through the bathroom door.

"I can just see my dad now: 'Do you have any idea how worried I've been about you Camille? You could have been killed just like Buddha Bob! Is that what you want to happen? That would break my heart! This is why I don't let you leave the apartment when I'm gone, Camille, because there are murderers and rapists and kidnappers and drug dealers and pimps and seemingly benign ice cream men all waiting to invade your privacy and desecrate your innocence!'" I laughed at Camille's excellent impression of her overbearing father. As I slipped one of Kendall's polos over my head, the smell of him filled my nose and intoxicated me. I hated him for being so irresistible. The way his deodorant mixed with his sweat when he came home after practicing choreography was a smell I had always wanted all over me. I was disgusted with myself. I wanted to set fire to the things I was wearing, but they were so damn comfortable. Camille came out of the bathroom and we left to sit down on the barstools in the official Big Time Rush kitchen of the stars. I felt a wave of bitterness wash over me. We were in the apartment where the two guys who were treating us like shit lived and we couldn't do a thing about it. They even slept in the same room. Damn, we had too much in common, Camille and I. I wanted to go into their room and trash everything, teepee the whole place and write obscenities on their walls in bright red lipstick. But I knew that wouldn't solve anything. The boys would still be hot, we would still be Big Time Crushing on them and they would still take advantage of us whenever they wanted. Such are the lives of the rich and famous. The two of us just looked so trashy sitting around in the boys' clothes, so pathetic. I knew we deserved better.

Camille got up and went to the stove. She help up a saucepan that had been sitting on the range. "Soup. Want some?"

"Ugh, no thanks. Too much salt and fat. Might as well eat McDonald's."

"Looks like Mrs. Knight really left in a hurry." Camille was digging into the refrigerator but she couldn't find anything good.

"Y'know she really needs a day job…" she mused, "it looks like she cooks everything from scratch. There's nothing to eat when she's not here." She slammed the fridge door and looked at me. "She duped us, girl! The only good thing is that cheesecake, and she put it off limits."

"Well, look in the cabinets! Surely there's some popcorn, Cheetos, peanuts, brownie mix, Chips Ahoy, anything?"

"Jeez Jo, menstruate much? Besides, she said to help ourselves to anything in the _fridge_. Not the cabinets. I could tell she meant that. So basically… she wants us to eat carrot sticks."

"Son of a… hey, what's that?" something caught my eye across the room. I walked over to Mrs. Knight's bedroom. There was a note on the door that read:

_Don't even think about picking this lock, Katie! I told you I went Christmas shopping last night and there are presents in there for your birthday too so don't you dare ruin the surprise! By the way, if you're up, I'm so glad you're doing better! Call me and tell me so. XOXO Mom_

"This is hilarious." I handed the note to Camille. She chuckled and gave me a mischievous grin. "What?"

"Well, aren't you curious what the super special secret presents are?"

"Oh come on Camille, we aren't going in there!"

"Why not? They aren't our presents. What difference does it make? Obviously we're not going to tell Katie or the boys what their presents are. So let's just have a peek! Think of it as revenge on Mrs. Knight for the fridge trick."

I narrowed my eyes at her. I _was_ curious. _She's so cute when she's starting trouble… _I thought randomly. _Wait, what? Camille's not cute. She's sweet and all, but… Kendall's cute. He's an asshole, but he's my boyfriend and he's the one that I want… right?_ I shook my head yes. "Okay, fine." I turned the knob. It was locked. "It's locked!"

"Well **duh**!" Camille taunted, walking back into the kitchen.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for the hidden key in the kitchen." She said.

"Why would there be a—" Camille brought her head out of the cabinet under the sink holding a shiny silver key. "How did you know?"

"Because moms lock things, and when moms lock things moms hide the keys, and when moms hide keys they always make sure to satisfy themselves by putting it somewhere that no one else would ever _think_ to look, like under the dish soap. You are ill-versed in the ways of passive aggression, my dear." She stuck the key into the doorknob, unlocked the door, turned the knob and pushed the door open. We both gasped. That was… really something we never needed to see. James lying stark naked in Mrs. Knight's bed. So many questions were to come, but our immediate reaction was one of simple, dumbfounded shock and horror.


	10. Chapter 10

**Peridot's Dream**

It was the same as every other night since Mama died. As soon as I was asleep, I woke up on her porch. It was August, but not the stale, stagnant August that we have here in the big city. Out in the country, August is the time when the whole world seems to feel liberated and vivacious. Every flower on every plant is open, and the steamy breeze tickles those deep places inside the blossoms that they've been keeping hidden. The smell in the air is that of botanical bliss, and you feel yourself caught in the middle of a hedonic orgy with the hopes and dreams of all creatures flowing about you, as fragile yet indestructible as the late afternoon breeze. You exist for the sole purpose of enjoyment, and the sun dulls your mind with its merciless beating. Rolling through the golden grass which rises far above my head, I know that I am of one purpose with every rat, hare, owl and coyote. We live in the summer because life in the summer is beautiful. What more is there to do or know?

I hear Mama's voice calling to me from across the field. I run to the edge of the grass and she is standing there with a pitcher of pink lemonade telling me to come inside before I get heat stroke. I take her hand and we walk back to her house together. She's much taller in the dream than she ever really was, probably close to ten feet if I ever thought about it. She was actually barely half that height, but I like seeing her as tall as a tree in my mind. It makes perfect sense. We finish our lemonade and she sits down at her rocking chair, picks up her knitting and begins to hum a slow, solemn tune while she works. I lay down at her feet on top of a pillow like a cat and watch her from below in her infinite tallness and wisdom, making me a scarf for when autumn came "real soon." I watch her for a long time before my eyelids start to sink and she fades slowly away. At the same time, my eyelids slowly open in my home under the overpass, and I'm alone in the dusty, rusty, chilly darkness. Autumn was coming early that year, and my scarf had long since blown away.

Thanks to that dream, I woke up every morning with a smile on my face, even if it never returned until I was asleep again. It showed me what my life with Mama should've been like, could've been like, someday. It helped me to forget that our last days together had been spent in a homeless shelter in the worst part of town, sharing a cockroach-infested room with a silent old man whose life had ended the day he tried crack cocaine. Seeing Mama's smile in the bright sun helped me to forget the last time I saw her cold, tired, defeated, dead face lying next to mine. It helped me to remember that happiness did exist, even if I didn't make it to my next birthday, as long as I wasn't alone. At least Citrine and I had each other. At least my cold, tired, defeated, dead face would have someone to lie next to.

**Disembodied Girl's POV**

I watched Peridot wake up, and I wanted to say something but she couldn't see or hear me. She just stared at the door, seeming simultaneously to dread someone bursting through and taking her away to another foster home and to be painfully hopeful that Citrine would appear and soothe her worries, maybe give her a stolen candy bar. I doubted that either would happen, but Peridot had absolutely nothing to do but sit in her dread and her hope and wait for the next tragic event of her life. I had a terrible feeling that Citrine would never walk back through that ancient iron door, that something absolutely sinister had happened to her and that it had a lot to do with me and my family. The harder I wondered where the waitress was, the more I felt myself slipping away from Peridot and leaving the overpass. Next thing I knew, I was flying across L.A. once more and I didn't stop until I was high above Rocque Records. I floated down until I recognized Kelly, Logan, Carlos and my brother standing outside the front doors, staring down at something. Strangest of all, there was someone clinging to my brother's back.

I stood before the body lying on the stoop and tried to convince myself that it wasn't Citrine, that it was some other woman who looked just like her who had been savagely killed and flung out here for all to see. But I knew better, and seeing her like that made me angry. _What's the point of this? _I tried to say, but made no sound. _This isn't fair! Peridot needs you! You can't die now! Why does everything bad have to happen to her!_

"It's not just her bad luck, Katie. Peridot and I have led similar lives. We're both twisted caricatures of how, no matter how hard society tries to protect everyone, some people always fall through the cracks." I turned around and saw Citrine demount my brother and take a few steps closer to me so that we were both standing beside her corpse. She was translucent, so I found I couldn't look into her eyes.

"I'm sorry." I said earnestly.

"Don't be. It's not your fault. I guess you've visited my home and had a talk with my… friend, I guess. I've actually started to think of her as my daughter. I've been thinking about her a lot since I died, but I try not to think about it too hard. I know she'll have to get new foster parents now, and she's had the worst history with those. It was her last foster father who did… it… to her."

"Did what?"

"Y'know, her imperfection. Didn't you notice?" I shook my head. "My God Katie, the girl can't walk! That's why I bring food to her every day in that dungeon that she never leaves. The real world is too much for her anymore."

"Wow… how did it happen? What did he do to her?"

"Well, he kept her chained to her bed in her room. The shackles were tight to begin with, but she was growing fast and soon they were cutting off blood to her feet. By the time child services stormed the house where that bastard was keeping her prisoner with somewhere near twelve other girls, her feet were dead and they had to amputate them to keep the gangrene from traveling up her legs. That was before she met Darcy. That woman was a saint, from what I hear. Perry felt safe with her for so long, and she was making great strides toward walking with some cheap prosthetics, but it all went to Hell when her mama got so inundated with medical bills from her physical therapy that her apartment was foreclosed upon and they had to move into a homeless shelter. There, Darcy got sick and before long left that sweet little girl all alone. Peridot hasn't walked since."

"I don't believe it… she's survived so much… and I thought moving away from home to watch my brother become a star while I sat on the sidelines was hard."

"But that's not all you've had to endure… is it, Katie? You lost your dad somewhere along the way, didn't you?"

"H-How did you know that? You don't know anything about me!" She gave me a knowing look.

"I know it's wrong, but I've been… watching… you and your family a little bit since I died. I like you all very much."

That explained it! I had been trying to solve the mystery of my displacement ever since I woke up on my brother's bed, and I think I got it just then! "I felt your presence, Citrine. I couldn't put my finger on it until just now, but I could smell you on me, I could hear you whispering as if there was a concrete wall between us, I could feel you irradiating off of everything! You didn't… somehow… come inside of me, did you?"

**Disembodied Woman's POV**

I wanted to tell Katie the truth, but what I had done to her was too shameful. I couldn't bear to say that I had usurped her body just to get a chance to feel her brother with flesh, a desire which stemmed from little more than simple lust and loneliness. That's when it occurred to me how strange it was that Katie had come to me in spirit. Obviously my logic and sense of reality were already starting to become distorted due to my separation from my mind.

"No… how could I do that? You were inside of your own body. I was in your apartment when you got up this morning and sleepwalked into your brother's room. I left soon afterward. What happened? Why are you projecting yourself here?"

"I don't really know… I'm somehow separated from my body. I couldn't hold on for more than a few minutes after I woke up. Something really, really strange has happened… or is happening to me. My body's just lying on the couch in my apartment. I know I'm still alive, though, because…" she bent down and grabbed a glowing white cord that was wrapped around her ankle. "This thing. It's feeding me all of my thoughts, emotions, and memories from my brain like some kind of umbilical cord." Suddenly, her eyes widened and fixated on my foot.

"What?" I asked and looked down. There was a misty, mostly empty outline of my body that hadn't been present earlier in 2J. And there was something else. The sliver cord… there was one on my ankle too! I followed it to its other end. There wasn't far for it to go. It entered my head, lying lifelessly on the pavement, a couple of feet away. I could see weak little pulses of electricity flowing through it, lighting it up as they went.

"Citrine, you're still connected to your body! That means you aren't dead!" Katie exclaimed happily. I refused to believe it. I couldn't be alive! I had already come to terms with being dead! I got down and put my newly identifiable ear on my chest of flesh. There was a heartbeat. It was coming every couple of seconds, very strained. But it was there, and that meant that Bitters hadn't finished his job. I looked up at Katie. She was beaming at me. I couldn't believe what my selfishness had done to her. _She may never be the same because of me. What if she can never get back into her body? And it's all because I wasn't willing to die without getting some cheap thrill! Now that I realize that I might live to tell of this, Katie, this sweet little girl who gave me a good fortune because she thought it might help me, may end up being the second victim of the foolish naivety with which I conducted myself last night. I only ever came to the Palm Woods because I wanted to be rich and famous. This is 100% my fault. I'm a home wrecker in the worst way._

**Kendall's POV**

A nightmare. That's all that day was. My own mind was trying to terrify and disturb me as much as possible. I was trapped in a world of monsters lurking around every corner waiting to break me down and get me to give in and wake up. It didn't make any sense that Citrine Hu would be lying dead on the stoop of Rocque Records. It was more than I could take. Kelly covered her mouth with her hand and promptly ran to some neatly cropped bushes nearby to toil over the dissuasion of her breakfast to make a curtain call. Logan cried out and buried his face in Carlos' chest, who stared at the body in horror as he took Logan down the stairs away from her. I called the police for the second time.

"H-Hello, yes I'm outside Rocque Records and there's a b-body. Yes, I know her. Her name is Citrine Hu. Is she alive? Um… I don't… let me check." I got on my knees and felt her wrist. There was something moving inside. She had to be alive. "Yes! Yes, she's definitely alive, but I don't know how much longer she has. She's lost a lot of blood from her head."

The dispatcher said to stay with her and that an ambulance would arrive in a few minutes. I stared into the face of the pretty girl and a shiver went down my spine. It felt like she was all over me, groping every inch of my soul. The weird part is, I had gotten the same weird goose bumps in the limo, like my skin was touching another's when I was alone on the seat. I knew that stepping away from her wasn't an option, that I would be by her side until she died. I didn't care how long that would be. I felt that she needed somebody.

**Disembodied Woman's POV**

Kendall entered me. We were occupying the same space. For the first time in all my years, I wasn't singular. Kendall Knight was giving himself to me and we were becoming united in a plurality. It took all I had to not acquiesce and assimilate. Possession was extremely addictive. The feeling of being one with him for one second was a greater high than two decades of life had ever provided. His hand traveled to the pocket of my slacks and pulled out a crumpled piece of yellow lined paper that had been sticking out slightly. His eyebrows furrowed as he looked at it and he opened it up and straightened it out on his leg. I read it while he held it up and did the same.

_**I TOLD YOU I COULD HAVE YOU ON GUSTAVO ROCQUE'S DOORSTEP BY THIS MORNING. I DON'T RENEG ON MY PROMISES, SO BELIEVE ME WHEN I MAKE THIS ONE: IF YOU TELL ANYONE WHO I AM AND WHAT HAPPENED, IT'LL BE YOUR OTHER LEG IN THE VICEGRIP, AND THAT'S JUST FOREPLAY.**_

_**MY SUGGESTION: GET YOUR FREAK ASS OUT OF TOWN AND DON'T LOOK BACK. YOU'RE LUCKY I WASN'T IN THE MOOD TO KILL YOU FOR THE FUN OF IT.**_

It was hard to believe that Bitters still wasn't done with me, but I suppose that he had to cover his back somehow. The note was a slap to the face. All of the hope that had been born of my realization of being alive turned to doubt like that. If I left town, I would lose what little I had. I would never be a star, I would still be homeless, I would have to leave Peridot behind and I would likely never see Kendall again. The last thought scared me the most, strangely enough. It assured me completely that leaving L.A. would be worse than dying (though I wasn't really at liberty to make that judgment, seeing as I had never actually died).

"Citrine, who wrote that? Was it the guy who made you like this? Who was it?" Katie urged me to tell. Again, the truth was something she was better off not knowing.

"I don't know. I don't remember anything after I left the Glory Panda for the second time last night after finding my necklace." She was only eight. I didn't need to make the lie _that_ complex. That's when I heard sirens fast approaching from down the street. It seemed sudden, but then I remembered what part of town we were in and that there was a hospital a few blocks away. Kendall and I stood up at the same time to look for it. I wasn't sure whether it was a coincidence or if our energies had somehow synchronized. We all watched as a couple of paramedics ascended the stairs two at a time to get to my body. They checked my pulse and said a bunch of things to each other that none of us understood, then before I knew it I was being pushed into the back of the ambulance on a gurney and Kendall was climbing in behind me. Kelly, Carlos and Logan tried to get him to stay for their meeting with Gustavo but he wouldn't leave me alone. They didn't get it but they didn't stop him, either.

I couldn't take my eyes off of Kendall's face. I had secretly started to call him my White Knight in my thoughts. I had the paranoid notion that perhaps Katie could hear my thoughts since we weren't making any sound to speak to each other, but she seemed to be fixated on the motions of the paramedics and what they were doing to save me. She hadn't thought twice about coming with us. She was irreparably invested in my safety due to the bond she had made with Peridot just by visiting her once. That made me feel important, but at the same time it was sad because I didn't really expect to survive. The only thing that made me feel more important than being the light of my darling orphan girl's life was the way Kendall's face changed with every effort made to stabilize my body. He seemed tortured as he watched me cling to this world by a thread. He listened to the paramedics intently and his face rose and fell as they noted things both promising and ominous. It had seemed to happen in an instant, but he looked like he really cared about me. He really wanted me to live. I thought again about our fantasy life together, and it suddenly seemed totally possible. That's when I resolved to climb back into my body and fight for the life that lay ahead of me. But my resolution came just a moment too late.

**Dr. Hollywood's POV**

The sunrise over the Pacific Ocean always gives truth to the name of the peaceful waves it embellishes. As long as I start off my day with a toast to the new air, the fresh sun and the well-rested sky, there is nothing I can't do. Sometimes I even dare to look forward to it when I should be sleeping. Being awake is so much more enjoyable, and when one knows just how to order it, the coffee at the Sunrise Café is simply divine. Seeing as it was a Saturday morning and most people were indulging in extraneous quantities of sleep, I decided to treat myself too and order a maple nut blondie, the decadent confection du jour. The bakery of the Sunrise is a sinful place where the ovens run on the repressed desires of the weary and weight-watching. As a doctor, I am obliged to have a moral abhorrence for such places, but considering I deal mostly in cosmetic affairs we're really on the same side. Everyone needs to let loose once in a while, perhaps once in a week, and that's my professional opinion.

Mrs. Knight blew onto the terrace in a whirlwind of anxiety and nearly fell flat when she misjudged the position of the wrought iron chair opposite me at my small table.

"Would you like some coffee?" I started off politely, hoping against hope that we could exchange some pleasantries before she bombarded me with medical questions too vague to answer. Mrs. Knight regarded me in exasperation for a moment, then her look softened and she unexpectedly replied yes. After a few sips of her double shot latte, the woman before me was transformed into someone remarkably reasonable and half her age.

"At first I was just concerned about the sleepwalking, but then she started not making any sense, looking incredibly tired and talking like she was having an out-of-body experience. Next thing I knew, she was completely passed out. Did I mention that her skin was cold as ice? Doctor, I can tell my daughter is sick but this is a very strange way for it to happen! Oh my God… what if it's Swine Flu! Does this sound like Swine Flu to you? What percentage of children survives Swine Flu?"

"It could be Swine Flu." I said temperately after moving my eyes from hers to the sea. I smiled when I saw her begin to fret and fuss. "I suppose I could stand to come by and take a look at her before going to my office, but you know that would encroach dreadfully on my morning Zen. I'll need some reimbursement."

"Of course I'll pay you!" she squawked. "If that's all it'll take, we should get going now!"

"No, no. Mrs. Knight, Hollywood is my last name. I assure you that I have all the money I could ever want. What I find I'm lacking severely is company. Not just any company, but your company."

"_My_ company?"

"Yes. I want to take you to dinner, Kristen."

"Oh! Well… I don't know…"

"In that case, I could always come by and assess Katie's condition after work in about, say, ten hours."

"No! No, anything could happen by then. She needs to be checked out right now."

"So… is that a yes?"

"…alright, yes. I accept your invitation."

"Excellent. Let's go see about your daughter then, shall we_?"_

**Disembodied Woman's POV**

I was flatlining. My heart fell a thousand fathoms into a dark trench at the sound that shattered the tense air inside the ambulance. My heartbeat had been pretty good, or so I thought, though it might have been getting a little slower. But just like that, when I wasn't looking at myself, the equipment, the paramedics or anything else that wasn't Kendall, I heard the heart monitor begin to emit one long tone. The sound of resignation. It was something I deserved to hear for abandoning my body. Kendall's face was pulled back in fear and distress. Katie's mouth hung wide open. I could scarcely process what was happening. We all watched in shock as the defibrillators were brought up and placed on my chest. I rose slightly up off the gurney, but the heart monitor was in no position to make a concession. They pushed on my chest so hard that I thought my ribs would break. Once the third attempt at reviving me had failed, the reality of my position dawned on me. I was dead, again! I looked down at the silver cord. It was shriveling up. My thoughts were getting cloudy. It was do or die. Actually, at that point, it was just do because I was already dead. I looked at Kendall. His eyes were swelled up with tears and they began to roll down his cheeks. I looked at Katie and she looked in my direction, but seemed to see nothing. This deflated her severely. That's when the strangest idea of my life (or lack thereof) hit me like a ton of ectoplasm.

I was on the verge of losing everything. My whole life had been nothing but working and dreaming, and a number of lonely nights greater than that of the sky-bound stars that had kept me company. I always knew that I would never really amount to anything in a dark, unswept corner of my mind. The lie that I had enough talent or guts to become a star had only been something to keep me going through all the years of heartache. It had been such a long road to discovering who I really was, and then to doing something about it and getting through all the repercussions of that necessity. My life had been building up, getting gradually better to the point where I was living under a bridge but at least I was living for real. I was almost free. My life was about to start. All I needed was to get a real job somewhere, anywhere besides the Glory Panda Super Buffet. I had hit rock bottom, every rock wall and even the rock ceiling, but I had never gotten a break. My only real dream, the only thing I had ever really wanted was to be loved for who I really was by the most amazing man I'd ever meet and to spend forever in his arms. Now, just when I was a trillion light years closer to that utopian state than ever before, it was all being taken away by one stupid old man, his hammer and his unpredictably heavy coffee pot. I watched Kendall take my hand and beg me to wake up, and I knew what I had to do. I had to use my only option, the only way I could be with Kendall, whether it was everything I had always wanted or just a pathetic fraction of it. I had to do the most evil thing I've ever done.

I broke my fragile silver cord with a simple tug and floated across the cabin of the ambulance to Katie's side. I was sickened by how easy it was for me to pull at hers while I had faded so much from this world that she couldn't see or sense me at all. Finally, with the use of all my astral strength, I broke the bond on the girl's ankle and quickly replaced it with that which applied to my body, the cord almost crumbling to dust in my hands. It rejoined to a ring around her petite limb seamlessly, and when I wrapped her cord around my ankle and brought the two ends back together they reformed into each other even quicker. Before I could wallow in my remorse for the terrible crime I had committed, I was pulled out of the speeding car with the sound of my own death ringing in my ears, a sound which I could still hear with disturbing clarity as my eyes opened in Apartment 2J.


	11. Chapter 11

**Logan's Dream**

I tossed and turned most of the night. Carlos was like a mosquito in my ear. I had a couple of fitful dreams in a state of half-sleep where he and I were back in the limo, having sex and trying to kill each other like animals at the same time. I sat straight up in my bed when he bit down hard on my neck with all his teeth. I touched my jugular vein. It was throbbing and I didn't know if I was actually bleeding or not. I was drenched in sweat. I looked across my room at Kendall. He took no notice of my insanity. I was hearing voices in my head. One of them was screaming that I needed to avoid Carlos at all costs, that my life would be a hundred times better without him. But there was a little voice floating in an inner tube on the sea of cranial fluid that my thoughts swam swiftly through under the surface, whispering truth into the salty air that blew by my ears only rarely for me to be able to hear it. That little voice told me that I had always wanted to be Carlos' boyfriend, that he was everything I needed and all I had to do was say yes for him to be mine forever. That little voice seemed to come from the far future, a place where Carlos and I had been in love for years and my life would crumble to pieces without him to fill in the cracks. I fell asleep listening for that voice as closely as I could, sometime around 4 a.m.

The dream couldn't have lasted more than two hours, but it changed everything for me. Carlos and I were probably twice as old, but that didn't seem strange to me. The dream started with us driving to a beach with white sand. Sitting beside him and watching the waves roll in, I felt a feeling that I'd never ever known existed before, asleep or awake. Have you ever had a feeling in a dream that you've never had in real life? My mom used to tell me that those feelings were locked up inside of us from many, many lifetimes of love and loss that came before this one. I used to wonder what the man I loved was like in those other lives. Yeah, I've known I'm gay for a really, really long time. I guess I'm just the type of person who is too aware of himself to ignore or repress his feelings. It helped that I was an introverted child who had lots of time to think about things, which, once puberty rolled around, means I had lots of time to think about boys. I've known about Carlos for almost as long, but he never really came onto me until that night in the parking garage.

The feeling that I got, for the lack of a better word, was peace. A person cannot be truly at peace until they know that they are loved and accepted for who they are. I know that now, but it was still a mystery to me back then. I had never had any steady boyfriends. There was one guy that I dated in my freshman year back in Minnesota… Caleb was his name. I thought that I might have loved him, but our personalities didn't mesh at all. I was just desperate and clingy. I remember Carlos actually helped me deal with moving on when Caleb stopped calling me one weekend and showed up on Monday morning with a new _girl_friend. He was such a douche, looking back, but he was really cute. Peace washed over me like the wind over the ocean as I sat with my hand in Carlos' on our darling beach blanket. I looked at him and he smiled accommodatingly. He had wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, and his hair was tinged with gray in random places, but that only made me love him more because those same years that had taken such a toll on our bodies had only made our spirits stronger because we had spent them together. How was it possible that this man was my best friend, my husband, my confidant, my business partner and my savior all rolled into one? How was it possible that he loved every single part of me, from my toenails to my earlobes, from my embarrassing fears to my occasional flings with country music, from the way I changed the shoelaces on my sneakers to match my outfit to my often compulsive use of lint rollers? I couldn't imagine, but I had never felt more comfortable in my own skin. I leaned into him and gave him a sweet little kiss.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"For giving me the strength to live, for giving me everything that's worth having. You love me and a million kisses won't ever repay what that means. But I can try." I smiled and kissed him again.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them and our lips parted we were riding in a carriage through central park in New York City. There were lights strung around all the streetlamps, and Christmas carols floated through the air. He put his arm around me and I buried my face in his coat. It smelled overwhelmingly of him.

"I love you." I mumbled into him, getting closer.

"I know, silly. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas…" I said and opened my eyes to see the inside of a crowded subway train. Carlos was standing in front of me holding a pole.

"What? Dude, it's September. Not quite Christmas yet. C'mon, this is our stop." I followed him out and we went down a few tunnels and up a few staircases until we came out right beside the Arc de Triomphe. "We've got time to have drinks before the show. Sound good?"

"Sure…" Carlos started to walk away and I tried to keep up but people were crowding in between us, and I tripped off of a curb into the street. I closed my eyes and waited for impact, but all I felt was a cold wind on my face. I looked cautiously and saw a snowy hillside flowing beneath me at a feverish pace. I was skiing. Beside me, Carlos was on his snowboard. He gave me a thumbs-up and we reached the bottom of the mountains.

"That was awesome!" he shouted, then suggested that we get some hot cocoa at the lodge. I wanted to stay with him beside the fire, but the scene changed again soon enough. I don't remember all of the vacations I went through, but there were probably a couple dozen. Through every one, I noticed Carlos getting younger and younger, until we were under twenty again. I remember the last one best of all. We must have been about eighteen. I opened my eyes and saw the love of my life before me dressed in a white tuxedo. There were candles lit all around. To my right, I saw all our family and friends. I felt tears come to my eyes as I realized what was happening. I felt so much joy that I laughed slowly in a way that must have seemed like sobbing.

"Don't cry Logie, or I will too and we'll never get to the good part." He said, showing his beautiful smile. And then he took my hand and slipped a shiny little ring onto it.

"Logan? Are you okay?" someone said from far away.

"Yes, I feel wonderful. Let's finish getting married now."

"What?" I opened my eyes one last time and saw my roommate standing over my bed looking down at me with a smirk on his face.

"Kendall?"

"That would be me. Logan, were you just dreaming about—"

"No, I wasn't dreaming about anything! I'm fine. Is it morning already?"

"Yeah, and Kelly should be here soon. But… Logan, fine people usually don't cry in their sleep." I put my hand to my face. It was hot and wet. I looked down at my pillow. Soaked in tears.

"I wasn't crying. I was just… drooling. A lot."

"Right…" Kendall shrugged and walked out of the room. Now that I was awake, the screaming voice was back and I still couldn't face Carlos. _Besides, the Carlos from my dream doesn't_ _actually exist. That's just the man I want to exist. No one could ever be that perfect. I either take the real Carlos or go elsewhere… assuming he'd still have me…_

**James' POV**

I sat straight up in bed in time to see Jo and Camille slam the door in front of them. Getting woken up by screaming doesn't offer one a very tranquil state of mind. The monstrosity of the situation came to me in layers: first, that I was naked and in a very compromising position; second, that I had been found by, of all people, the girls from down the hall who happened to be my best friends' girlfriends and third, that this was not my room but in fact Katie and Kristen's room, which would require a swift and clever explanation. I found my clothes neatly folded on a chair beside the bed. Thank God my partner in crime had had the foresight to clean up after us at some point in the night or early morning. That woman never ceased to amaze me with her productivity and initiative, though perhaps in this case not so much initiative seeing as the stakes really couldn't have been much higher. After getting dressed, I opened the door a crack and peeked into the living room to see if Jo and Camille were still there. I saw Katie wrapped in the legendary and oft-ridiculed blanket cocoon on the couch, which made Kristen's absence strange. Once she reached a state of total doting on her daughter, she could hold vigil for days. I stepped out spoke cautiously.

"…Jo? Camille? Girls, a-are you still here?" Two little faces poked out from around the corner on the other side of the room from inside Kendall and Logan's bedroom. Both of them were beet red, either from blushing uncontrollably or from laughing their asses off at my expense.

"Hey James…" Jo said, taking a few steps toward me and trying to suppress her grin. Camille trotted behind, making a fish face just to keep from cackling.

"Listen, about what you saw—"

"Oh, no need to explain James. We won't tell Mrs. Knight how you… make use? of her bed while she's out running errands."

I sighed deeply. Jo and Camille thought I was just being weird by sleeping in Kristen's bed. I guess I do enough strange and creepy stuff that not much comes as a surprise to anyone who's acquainted with me.

"Thanks. Hey, why are you two here, anyway?"

Camille pointed her thumb at Katie. "The midget's fallen 'suddenly ill'. Mrs. Knight left a few minutes ago to talk to Dr. Hollywood… but shouldn't you know that?"

"Pardon? Why would I know that?"

"Well you must have snuck in there and stripped right quick just before we showed up…" Camille started, then fell quiet with thinking. "…and now that I think about it you were fast asleep… so this timeline doesn't really match up." She looked at Jo, who smiled slyly.

_Oh shit, they've been screwing with me the whole time! They know what's going on!_ I couldn't take it anymore. They were both staring me down, waiting for me to crack. "So James, you spent the night in Mrs. Knight's room. I suppose you're going to try to get us to believe that she slept in your bed next?"

I walked over to the kitchen and plopped down on a barstool, mashing my face into my hands. I rubbed my eyes a few times, trying to stall enough to think of a way around the obvious truth, but I found none. I looked at the girls frankly. Camille had sat on the edge of the sofa and was regarding me sympathetically, but Jo was just standing with her arms crossed, anticipating some snake-tongued excuse. I stared at the ground and my stomach did a flip.

"No, I'm not. I'll tell you two the truth. Are you going to keep it a secret?"

"That depends. What's in it for us?" Jo shot back.

"I don't know! You choose the terms of the agreement; you've got the full hand!" They looked at each other.

"How about something simple, like we cover for you and you cover for us?" Camille suggested.

"Huh? What did you do?" They looked at each other again.

"Well, we kind of stayed out all night, and there have kind of been two murders in the Palm Woods lobby which were probably both done by Bitters who our parents probably think we have also fallen victim to seeing as they haven't exactly heard from either of us since yesterday." Camille explained.

"The only thing that's for sure is that they're going to be pissed." Jo added.

"Right, so it would be fabulous if you kind of took 100% of the fall for us and said we were with you at Club 'Cuda and that you're a terrible influence in general." Camille said with a squeaky-clean smile on her face.

"And in return, we won't tell Kendall, Katie, Carlos or Logan that you're fooling around with Mrs. Knight… which, by the way, is pretty gross." Jo said with a revolted grimace.

"Okay… hey, wait a minute! I never told you that I was—that we were—"

"Seriously, James? We aren't six years old. We knew what was going on as soon as we saw you spread like Nutella and Mrs. Knight's bra hanging from the ceiling fan." I laughed in spite of myself at Camille's crassness and happened to glance at Katie. Her eyes were wide open and she was just staring at the ceiling.

"Katie? Are you okay?" I had completely forgotten she was even in the room. We could have woken her up just as the conversation started and she might have heard everything. When were we going to stop making stupid mistakes like that?

Camille and Jo looked down at her and her eyes zeroed in on me with terrifying intensity. "I need…" she tried to speak, but she sounded choked with sand.

"What? Do you want some water?" I offered. She nodded feebly. I went to the sink and Camille ran over to me, whispering in alarm.

"Oh my Gosh James, I think Katie might actually be sick!"

"Don't sound so astonished. Kristen isn't completely insane."

"Kristen?" she looked down her nose at me. "Are you two for real?"

"Who knows? It started last night right after dinner and just kind of… shot off."

"Well, do you… want to keep it going? I mean do you care about her at all?"

I gulped and realized that the glass was overflowing with water under the faucet. I switched it off and dumped a quarter of the water out, hurrying past Camille to give it to Katie. She devoured it and asked for more. That's when Kristen came through the front door with Dr. Hollywood in tow.

**Carlos' POV**

Logan and I sat together on the steps of Rocque Records as Kendall phoned an ambulance to come and try to save the girl lying broken in obstruction of the front doors, who was apparently alive. Everything about that moment was surreal. Logan was crying softly into me, which both elated and disconcerted me. I felt like I didn't know anyone like I had before we went out to dinner the night before. Kelly seemed genuinely stressed and upset as she argued with Gustavo on her cell phone a few feet away, when she was usually so cool and in control. Then there was Kendall, who bled easy-goingness to such an extent that even bleach couldn't get it out of his clothes, seeming as emotionally crushed at the state of the girl before him (who I slowly accepted was actually our waitress from the Glory Panda) as the girl was physically crushed herself. And then there was Logan, who was supposed to know everything but seemed as lost clutching the fringes of my leather jacket as a child clutching his mother's skirts as they made their way through a crowded train station. Logan, who until we opened our fortune cookies the night before had just been my cute best friend, but was now the only thing on my mind (an unfortunate condition whose only cures are heartbreak and death). I dared to kiss his head and he brought his face out so his bloodshot eyes met mine.

"Carlos… it's too much."

"C'mon Logan, I know it's a shock but how're you ever gonna be a doctor if you can't bear the sight of a battered corpse here and there?" I said, trying to sound cheery and failing miserably.

"No, I didn't mean her or Buddha Bob… I was talking about you and me. I can't get my head straight right now."

"Well, it's not exactly straight no matter how you think about it…"

"Hey, stop making jokes already! I'm trying to be serious." He said, cracking a smile and punching me in the arm playfully. "I just don't know how I feel. I could be feeling everything or nothing. I'm only sure that I'm confused. I was sure that I could resist you when I went to bed last night, but then I had the most… wonderful dream of my life. We were in love. It was everything I ever dreamed it would be." He smiled weakly, shy to meet my eyes.

"At least you fell asleep. I just lied in bed, hour after hour… wishing the wall between us would fall down. The drywall, for one, but the one that you put up even more."

Logan's lips parted and a painful breath flew out. "I don't know how I even thought I could sit through this meeting, Carlos. We need to split while no one's looking." The ambulance pulled up as he spoke and some paramedics brought a gurney up to take the girl away. Kendall started to go away with them. We stood up and I yelled down at him.

"Kendall! Where are you going?"

He looked back for a moment and simply said that someone had to stay with her.

"Kendall, no! Stay here and come up to Studio A. Gustavo wants all of us." Kelly demanded in irritation. He just shook his head and climbed into the back of the vehicle quickly as it began to pull away. She let out of a puff of air. "Carlos, Logan, let's go. Do you know where James is?"

"Nope. Nobody's seen or heard from him since dinner." I answered. Logan seemed frazzled speechless.

"Okay… Gustavo's not gonna like that." She gingerly stepped over the blood puddle, opened the door and sidled inside. "Don't make me wait on y'all! I'll go try to calm him down so he doesn't take it out too much on you two. Come up in a few minutes." She attempted a smile as an afterthought, as if remembering that we expected her to be happy no matter what. Then she disappeared inside. I turned to Logan and nodded in the direction opposite Rocque Records. He nodded readily.

"Anywhere else." He requested.

"I think I know just the somewhere else for a day like this." I said mysteriously. Logan didn't ask any questions. I knew he was in the mood for a _good_ surprise. I hailed a cab and it took us a long way. I made sure to whisper the destination in the cabby's ear, which made Logan giggle. I wondered if he knew that that was all I ever wanted. After almost an hour of us contentedly relaxing with our heads on each other's shoulders as the cab took us farther and farther out of town, it stopped outside a winery. I still remember where that place is, but as for the name of it, I couldn't tell you. It was old and the couple that owned it was a friend of my father's running a small and barely profitable operation. They were content to have any visitors and greeted us with hugs and kisses on the cheek. I bought a couple of bottles of wine (Logan and I easily passed as adults and to their old eyes, it made no difference) and told Logan to follow me down the trail by the side of the vineyard. The trail gradually became a hill and then the trail disappeared altogether, but soon the trees before us parted and we reached our somewhere else.

**Logan's Dream Come True**

The view took my breath away. How like Carlos it was to keep a place like this secret until he had the perfectly recalcitrant date to woo. I tore my eyes off of the valley spanning out before us to meet my suitor's gaze. He had that unbelievable way of making his eyes come alive, a magical kind of smile from deep within that he used to hypnotize people in my position like rats at the mercy of a viper. I had always known his eyes to be weapons of mass infatuation, but I never thought the day would come that he would dare to use them on me. I never thought the day would come that I would fall for it.

"It's pretty cool, huh?" he understated cutely. I wanted to tackle him, but I was afraid we might fall off the stony cliff. Spread out in front of us was an expanse of beauty worthy of being framed and put on the ceiling of one's bedroom so that one could see it first every morning. The hills rolled away like waves in the ocean, cut neatly into squares that could only be noticed from high and far. Patches of luxuriant foliage popped up here and there, glittering like disco balls in the August fever. Some clouds were rolling in from far away like the broken pieces of some heavenly dam being washed downstream. Carlos sat down at my feet and uncorked a bottle of merlot. I was in no position to protest. Some grinning pink morning glories entwined the tree behind him, the roots of which tickled the side of the cliff with hundreds of bony fingers. Blue and yellow butterflies flittered about our faces. Carlos seemed quite pleased with himself as I accepted the glass of wine he had poured for me.

"Carlos…" I took a sip and licked my lip print off of the glass, "this wouldn't be a date, would it?"

He smiled with his lips and looked up as a flock of starlings flew overhead. "I dunno… could be."

I shook my head and sat down the glass. What a devilish way this boy had of giving me no choice but to follow his every whim. Things would never be as with Cinderella and Prince Charming between the two of us, seeing as years of knowing somebody breaks away the ice that makes whirlwind lovers so shiver and huddle close to one another. No, things would always be safe with Carlos, no matter how much an adventurer he fancied himself for taking me up on an unheard-of ridge. But things would be wonderfully, ecstatically safe, and besides getting to know somebody can be such a hassle. I wonder why more people don't fall in love with their best friends? Oh yes, because it's a lie of a possibility perpetuated by Hollywood directors and romance novelists uninhibited by reality. Looking at Carlos looking at me, I wondered if he could be an anomaly, an exception to the cautions of logic and prudence. How real could I let things get? Was I ready, and was it worth losing a friend to gain a who-knows-what? What would Logan Mitchell do when it came time to reconcile with the man of his dreams, the fantastical, romantic Carlos that wasn't supposed to exist? Could he wake up and smell the coffee, or was he just sleepwalking on the job?

"It's a nasty thing, Carlos Garcia, but you're as tempting as sin itself with the sun stuck on your face and the wind tangled up in your hair."

"That's the idea." He countered provocatively and swooped in for the kill. The buzzards ought to have started circling right then, because I was as lax as a cooked chicken in his claws.


	12. Chapter 12

**Freight Train's POV**

It was tough getting out of bed that morning. I had dreamt about her for the first time in months as soon as I fell asleep. Something about the way Logan and Carlos looked at each other in the limo and at the club brought back the strongest kind of memories for me. At first glance, puppy love between a couple of teenage heartthrobs may not seem to share the slightest shade with what we had, but on second glance there wasn't a bit of difference. Love is always the same, and like most things it has the most delicious smell when it's freshly matured and ready to take to the skies. I envied them bitterly for being so young and hopeful, but at the same time it was important for me to help them to not make the same mistakes that we did. I had fallen asleep thinking about hope and love and how I had gotten no new order of either in a very long time, and so I dreamt of how things used to be when I had my lady by my side… and so I woke up in the middle of the night and cried as I remembered the dream, bit by bit, until I was all cried out and slept for a little while longer. When the alarm on my radio turned on at 7:30 a.m., a song that my mother used to listen to long ago was playing softly next to my ear. I didn't move until it was over, and then I cried again before getting up with all the ardor and desolation a man can bear to cross my tiny bedroom into my tiny bathroom to take a long, lonely shower. As badly as I wanted it to go away, that song was stuck in my head for the rest of the day and I sang it softly under my breath while the rushing water drowned out my ghastly voice. My tears mixed with the hard water and it all fell down the same.

_I'll need time… oh, to get you off of my mind._

My mother listened to Tammy and all the classics a lot in her final days. She would sit in her rocking chair beside the turntable that she received as a wedding gift on the day that she married my father (the only nice thing her mother-in-law ever gave her, and no way did grandmamma ever let her forget it) and play the same old country records over and over until she fell asleep. I was still a punk running the streets back then. I would get home at some obscene hour of the morning and my mom would be passed out cold in the living room with one of her favorite songs stuck in one spot, probably having been skipping for hours but she didn't mind. One morning I came home and she wasn't there. Turns out she had fallen down the stairs on her way back down to the living room. She had wanted to get one last dusty record off the shelf in her room before she went to bed. Our neighbor Mrs. Burroughs heard some moaning and came to check on my mom. She called an ambulance, of course, when she found her, but it was still too late. My mom passed quietly on the wooden floor of her first and only home, with her husband's ashes on the mantle and shattered pieces of _'Til I Can Make It On My Own _lying all about her.

_And I may sometimes bother you_

_Try to get in touch with you_

_Even ask too much of you from time to time._

My lady had already left her dad and was living here and there, day by day by the time I was orphaned, and we resolved to stick together no matter what. You may not understand it, but those were the best days of my life. We were free; we were young. We had no one to care about but each other, and we did that pretty well. My lady and I both had our first time together, and my lady and I dropped out of high school together when we knew it wasn't for us. My lady and I seized the day together and my lady and I made our own definition of life together. We were of one spirit, of one mind, and I hoped and prayed those days would never end. Sure, it was hard most of the time, but she never complained. Then one morning my lady told me she wasn't feeling good and I joked and said "Neither am I, but what else is new?" The next morning my lady took a test and, for the first time in her life, her results were positive. I told her we couldn't keep it. We were dirt poor and barely getting by. I told her, "Ain't no baby ever grew up good on greasy money like ours." But she said she loved the part of me that she had and she wasn't ever gonna give it up. We fought about it for months, but she wouldn't see reason. Then there was the last morning, when all my lady left was a note. I called her daddy's house, I called all our friends, I even called our old school, but my lady was gone.

_Now and then… Lord, you know I'll need a friend._

'_Til I get used to losing you, let me keep on using you_

'_Til I can make it on my own._

Gustavo Rocque found me on the streets of L.A. in the worst place that I had ever been. I was a pothead, a gangbanger and a n'er-do-well in every sense of the word. But he liked me. He said I deserved better, and he said I was worth more than I knew. Then he made me his bodyguard. Before I knew it, I was learning all about the music industry and Gustavo taught me how to mix my own tracks when he had the time. I discovered my passion for music and started making my own money as a DJ, a producer and even a songwriter every once in a while. But I always honored my job as Gustavo's first mate before everything else. Lord knows with the luck Gustavo has, he needs some help and a good friend more than he ever lets on. Then one day, through the doors of Studio A, my lady came back into my life out of the blue. Turns out she had been going to night school to get her bachelor's as an administrative assistant, still homeless, and Gustavo said she could be his assistant until she was out of school. That way she would make enough money to have a place to lay her head at night. She was just as shocked as I was that we met again that way, but we didn't let Gustavo catch on to what we had been. We became friends again, but never too close. For two years up to that day I watched my lady from afar, just as beautiful as she had ever been, but getting smarter every day. It both restored and killed my soul to see her every day but to never be able to touch her, hold her, take her out again.

_I'll get by… but no matter how I try_

_There'll be times you know I'll call_

_Chances are my tears will fall_

_And I'll have no pride at all from time to time._

I was just leaving my apartment when my phone rang. I didn't know how to feel when the screen lit up with the words **Kelly Wainwright**. Sometimes I felt that I couldn't take the pain anymore, but I also knew that she was my one and only and that I would never get enough of her, even if she never kissed me again. I took a deep breath and answered it.

"Good morning Kelly." I said, trying to sound happy but still a little choked up.

"Like Hell it is! Buddha Bob was killed at the Palm Woods last night, James is MIA and Kendall has run off to the hospital to play hero to the second body I've found this morning. She was just lying there, leaking all over the doorstep of Rocque Records. Oh God, it probably left a stain! Jesus, Gustavo will have my head for this. I'm sure if she survives she'll find some way to press charges…"

"Calm down now. I can take some of the slack from you on this, don't worry. I'm headed over there right now. Why don't you sit down, have some coffee, have a bagel, take a chill pill and we'll work on getting things together when I get there. Sound good?"

I heard a tightly wound sigh on the other end. "Thanks Percy. It'll be a lot easier to talk to Gustavo about all of this if you're there. It always is. I'll wait for you."

"I'm glad to be of service, my lady. I'll be there in five."

There was a tense silence on the line. "Percy… I told you not to call me that anymore."

"Oh no, I didn't mean anything by it, I was just—"

"Please don't make this any harder than it has to be. I appreciate your help, but I don't need it if you're giving it for the wrong reasons. No games. Call me Kelly if you have to call." She hung up.

_But they say… oh, there'll be a brighter day._

_But 'til then I'll lean on you. _

_That's all I mean to do 'til I can make it on my own._

**Kendall's POV**

Citrine was dead. I said I would stay with her until she died, but I didn't realize how brief an occupation that would be. A surge of grief swept over me. She had only said a few words to me outside the restaurant the night before, and here I was the sole witness to her death that would remember her name. What sense was there in that? Didn't she have anyone to look out for her, anyone to keep something like this from happening? I studied her features as her face relaxed and tilted in my direction. Time went slower than usual for a couple of minutes while her death settled on the three of us in the ambulance cabin like a blown up milk bottle full of fine multicolored sand. She was beautiful, to be sure, but there was something different about her. I remembered the deep, rich sound of her voice when we spoke the night before. Most pretty girls go through life relying on their looks, and that gives their faces blank, waxy expressions. Citrine went through life relying on comfortable shoes, and I could tell that her face was one which had been painfully aware of every aspect of its life, one which hadn't spent a single moment on this Earth not in the deepest and most confounded thought. It's the same type of look that you see on the faces of people who have survived war, torture, calamity and poverty and come out inconceivably strong in spirit. The look of a person who's hard to kill, that's what it was.

_Ping!_

My eyes shot up at the heart monitor. One solitary ripple made its way across the screen.

_Ping!_

I looked back down at Citrine. One of her eyelids twitched.

_Ping! Ping! Ping!_

Her eyes shot wide open, the machine responding a mile a minute. Her heart was going wild. She grabbed me by the shirt and looked dead into my face.

"Kendall… help me…!" she rasped, her eyes full of terror, panic and… innocence, almost opening in an unnatural way so that Citrine's eyes looked larger and rounder. She held my gaze as long as she could before her eyes rolled back into her head and her heartbeat went down again as she relaxed onto the gurney. It was steady for the rest of the ride. I was visibly shaken. One of the paramedics asked me if I was okay and I lied yes. The person that had begged for my help was not the strong woman who had talked to me outside the Glory Panda, nor the person who had carved the little lines into her face, but someone very young, very small and very… familiar.

"How do you know her, anyway?" the paramedic asked me out of curiosity.

I shook my head. "I don't."

"Well, she sure seems to know you." He pointed out. It was true, and that was the strangest thing of all: how could Citrine possibly know my name when I had never introduced myself, and how did she know I was there before she even looked at me? She had called me Kendall so naturally, and the whimpering tone had been one that every big brother who ever lived recognizes right away.

**Kelly's POV**

As I lay there bleeding out of old wounds, I remembered what it felt like to hurt. It always used to hurt, but that time it didn't. I was numb to everything. I remembered the hurt of loving someone, and then I remembered that the hurt of not loving them anymore was even worse. I remembered the hurt of being alone. I remembered the hurt that I felt when I lay alone that first night with an empty womb, thinking about her far away without her mother to hold. I remembered the hurt of my last overdose, when everything I'd been keeping inside exploded and I felt death's breath on my neck. I hadn't thought about hurting since I started going to college after that, but I forgot that other people weren't so strong. Gustavo had as much hurt as anyone else, but he liked to spread it around. It certainly seemed spread out as I looked around his office. Broken glass was this way and that, the chairs were all overturned and there was a scary hole in the wall. I turned my head to the door when I heard sneakers coming up the hall.

"Kelly?" the boy in the sneakers said my name. I'm glad it was Kendall. Someone was bound to find me, after all, and I felt like I could explain this to him and still get him to keep his mouth shut about it.

"Hey Kendall." I greeted him, somehow trying to make the situation seem normal. I had to do whatever I could to downplay his distress.

"Oh my God, are you okay? Kelly, what happened?" He knelt beside me, inspecting my bruised plum of a face.

"Yes Kendall, I'm fine. I'm not hurt. It doesn't hurt. It's over now. It's under control. Just help me up so I can make some coffee."

He looked at me incredulously. "Kelly… I'm not stupid. I can see that someone did this to you. It looks like there was a huge fight. You've got to tell me what happened!"

"I know I do, Kendall. But you've still got to help me up so I can make some coffee. I'm going to need it for the confession I owe you." He bit his lip and nodded confusedly, then helped me up and started to help me walk, but I stopped him. "I don't need _that_ much help, honey. C'mon." We went down the hall to the break room. I noticed the empty spot on the counter where C.A.L. used to be, and wistfully wondered what its brew would have tasted like if I would have gotten to use it just once before Carlos made it go crazy and we had to savagely destroy it. I started the regular old coffee machine going and turned around to see Kendall staring at me in grave expectance. "Sit down." I said and we both did.

"I guess I should start by saying that you won't be seeing Freight Train around anymore."

"What? Why not?"

"Gustavo fired him."

"How could he do that? Freight Train's been Gustavo's first mate for years!"

"True… but he was my lover long before that." I had been staring at my hands, fumbling with my broken nail and there was an awkward silence which caused me to look over at Kendall, something which I hadn't wanted to do because it would keep me from finishing what I had to say. His mouth was hanging slightly open as his mind struggled with the information. I suppose I shocked him by coming out and saying it like that, but it was even harder for me to say it at all.

"You and Freight Train were… together?"

"Yeah, when we were your age. We didn't live far from here. I haven't made it far from the house I grew up in, actually. I tell people I'm from Georgia so they don't ask questions about my childhood." He looked at me again. "…which means I don't want you to ask either. I've got enough to tell as it is." I gulped. "I'm gonna say the rest and I don't want you to interrupt, okay?" he nodded.

"Basically Freight Train was my first love. Sometimes I think he's the only person I ever really have loved. I had some other relationships as the years went by but I see now how terrible those men were and I can't allow myself to believe that I loved them. I loved what they could give me, whether it was money, drugs, or even just a place to sleep that wasn't made of rain-soaked garbage. He and I were the real deal. I thought we'd be together forever. That was my only dream. I never thought that I would get pregnant. We were so young. It just didn't seem possible. But it was, and when I told Percy about the baby he said I needed to get an abortion. At first I agreed. Both of our parents had had us when they couldn't afford to take care of us or even love us at all, just because they were afraid of what God would do to them if they did otherwise. And both of our parents abused us, and both of our parents left us with nothing, and both of us will never know what it means to love our parents. That was something I couldn't do to my baby. But I waited; yes I waited just a little too long. I gave the baby a name and I decided it was a girl. Before long I wasn't living for anything but my baby. Before long I knew that I would prefer my own blood on my hands before that of my baby."

"So you kept her?" Kendall asked, now quite bemused.

"No. I carried her to term and I gave her away. But that wasn't my plan. I was going to keep her and raise her myself. When I told Percy that, he told me that he would never forgive me if I made that decision. I told him that he would either forgive me for it or never see me again, and he chose the latter. It was just one of many, many fights and I know he didn't mean it but I couldn't live with him anymore. I had to listen to my heart. I left before he woke up. I didn't say goodbye; I only left a little note letting him know what the rest of my life would be without him. I made so many plans for me and my baby girl while I roamed the streets with her, eating whatever I could to stay alive. And when the time came, I walked myself to the hospital, little by little, having to stop a few times to appease the contractions, and she was born without incident. The doctor put her in my arms and I looked into her glowing green eyes. I saw myself. I saw a little girl with hopes and dreams higher than heaven that would all come crashing down as soon as she was old enough to realize that she was poor, that she would always be poor and that her mama was even poorer for having raised her. I saw a life about to be ruined for the sake of my own selfishness and thirst for unconditional love. And that's when I decided to give her away. I knew she was better off never knowing me."

"I thought that part of my life was over, and I was ready to start so new when Gustavo took pity on me and asked me to work for him. But who do I see on the first day of my new life but big old Freight Train. He had that nickname when I met him too. I'm one of the only people who know the one his mom gave him. He asked if we could ever be together again and I said no. It's not that I don't want to… I just can't think of anything more counterproductive to the direction I'm trying to go in than watering those dried up roots that are planted so far in the past."

"Kelly, I know I agreed not to interrupt but you still haven't explained much of anything."

"Oh is that right? Well, sorry to have bored you Kendall; I'll get to the point. Gustavo's been frustrated since we brought you boys back from Minnesota. You're the most promising group he's ever managed, and that's a good thing… but he's just not used to the stress. Griffin breathing down his neck, Hawk watching him like a… well I won't be cheesy but he's waiting for Gustavo to mess up so that he can steal you four away. You know it gets to him sometimes."

"Yeah, I know. But what _happened?_ Was it him? What did he do?"

"He slapped me around, okay? That's probably not what you wanted to hear, but it's the truth. The first time he did it, I quit… but I was back here the next morning after he texted me all night long apologizing. I thought he was for real then. I still don't know if he is. He stopped saying sorry once he figured out I would never leave. Now it can happen every other day or just once a week, but it's usually not that bad. Last night, you must have noticed that he was checking his Blackberry a lot during dinner. Griffin was raising an unusual stink about how we need to start promoting your album harder. When he told him that he was setting the release date for October 12th, Gustavo was furious."

"October 12th! That's not nearly enough time for us to—"

"Don't you think I know that, Kendall? Why do you think Gustavo was so adamant about having a meeting with you guys last night about all the promotion you have to do before then if you want anyone to buy your album? Why do you think he reneged this holiday weekend? Things are worse than you guys seem to understand. You just keep screwing around like you're still a bunch of high school kids, but you're more than that now. Logan and Carlos were supposed to come up here an hour ago. I guess they ditched me. James has absolutely disappeared; I wouldn't be surprised if he's been murdered and they're digging his coiffed and manicured corpse out of the Palm Woods dumpster as we speak. My God, what would happen to the rest of us if that were true?" I met his eyes with the last question. He had no answer. I'm sure I was the last person he expected to be so frank and stern with him, but speechlessness was a good change of pace for him. He was too used to getting his way. "What about you? What went down with dead as a doornail doorstep girl?"

He cleared his throat and responded in a subdued way. "Well, she's anything but dead. Her vitals had stabilized miraculously by the time we got to the hospital. Since I wasn't family or really any relation at all, they didn't let me go any farther than the lobby with them, but they said that if they could only get her to wake up she was quite likely to survive. I hoped I could get back here in time not to miss the meeting, but…"

"Right, I guess I still need to tell you what happened. Last night, when you found me in the bathroom at the Glory Panda, I wasn't on my period. I mean, I'm still not. I hope you were only humoring me and didn't actually believe that. When everyone else left the dining room, Gustavo started telling me about the conversation he was having with Griffin and we got to arguing about what had to be done with you boys and how it needed to be executed. Naturally, he had an extreme idea of how the next month would pan out and I wanted to take a more reasonable approach. Next thing I knew, his hands were on my shoulders and he was shaking me. He threw me to the ground and when I got up and started to tell him off, he slapped me. Then he was on a roll. He punched me until my cheek was bleeding so badly that I couldn't talk, and then he was pleased. He left me to clean up the mess and that's what you caught me trying to do in the bathroom."

"So… the mess in Gustavo's office…"

"Basically the same deal. Without any of you boys around to stifle his rage, I was terrified to face him alone this morning and I called Freight Train in for backup. I tried to avoid Gustavo until he arrived, but I was found. I was found hiding in the broom closet, with just one sneeze from the feather duster giving me away. Gustavo asked me what I was doing. 'Nothing.' Gustavo asked me where James was. 'I don't know.' Gustavo asked me where you, Logan and Carlos were. 'Carlos and Logan should be headed up, but Kendall went off with some dead girl in an ambulance that we found on the doorstep.' Gustavo asked me whether the dead girl left a stain on the doorstep. 'Yes, probably.' Gustavo took me by the arm and flung me into his office. He had his hand raised and was about to strike me when an even larger fist encircled his from behind and wrenched his arm back. Percy had arrived at the worst moment, but there was nothing I could do to talk my ex down. What he had walked into was exactly what it looked like. Percy threw the first punch. Gustavo went flying. That's the hole in the wall. They proceeded to trade blows until Percy fell back through the window into the hall. That's the shattered glass. Gustavo told him to get out; he was fired. Percy told me that I didn't have to put up with what Gustavo was doing. He said, 'Come with me Kelly, we can be like in the old days!' I just shook my head and cried as security took Percy away. There's nothing left for me with that man. I need an income. I'm in my last year of college. This will all be over soon. I can survive until then. Gustavo asked me what Percy had meant by 'the old days'. I told him we were lovers and had a child together. That was more than what Gustavo could take. He left without saying a thing. I don't even know where we stand."

"Kelly, I had no idea. None of us had any idea about any of this."

"I know Kendall, and that's the worst part. You're all oblivious. The world is _this_ close to falling out from under you, and still you sleep your days away by the pool. Oh well." I got up and poured some freshly brewed coffee into the little pale green mug with little pink flowers that I kept around for mornings when I needed an extra boost. It's the little things that make all the difference when your life has problems too big to face, like patches in a quilt that's too thin to use. I turned back to him and let the aroma fill my brain. "There's nothing any of you can do. If I stop being Gustavo's pincushion general and chief of punching bags, y'all are on the next train back to Minnesota, I'm back to dumpster diving and Gustavo? Well he'd probably eat himself to death with Mrs. Field, Little Debbie and the Keebler elves as his only witnesses."

He got up and shook his head, then came to me resolutely. "It's not going to go either of those ways, Kelly. I'm going to find a way to help you, Gustavo be damned. Griffin likes us. There's a road to take without Gustavo standing in the middle of it."

"Big talk for a hockey player. Good luck on your crusade, Mr. Knight." I turned to leave, taking a sip of my coffee and stopped short when Kendall called my name.

"Kelly, wait. I was wondering… you probably don't like to talk about it, but what did you name your little girl? The one you gave away?"

I smiled at the memory of her, even giggled slightly like she did when I held her the one time. "I called her Julia during my pregnancy, but I changed it at the very last minute to Peridot… because she was born on the most beautiful August day I've ever seen. Her birthday was last week, in fact. I forgot to celebrate. I know that wherever she is, she has to be happier than me. A mother, a father, brothers, sisters, lots of clothes and presents. Everything I ever wanted when I was a little girl but never had. Yeah, I'm sure that giving her up is the one good thing I've ever done. You might understand someday."


	13. Chapter 13

**Citrine's Dream**

**Katie's POV**

I felt myself falling thousands of miles through groping darkness until I was sure I had reached terminal velocity, then I landed in a cage near the center of the Earth and the iron door was shut tight before me, sealing me hopelessly inside. It was the same iron door that made Peridot's cage complete beneath the overpass. A flickering incandescent bulb in the sickest shade of yellow showed me glimpses of the cell like photographs in an album. I tried to get up to explore the room, but my feet were missing and I had to crawl. Making good use of dream logic, I crawled up the wall and onto the ceiling and screwed the flickering light bulb back into its socket which hung wanly from an entanglement of wires coming out of a roughly cut hole in the ceiling. I saw that the room was made of drywall and paint, not concrete and iron as I had imagined. The paint was the color of August honey and there were dozens of pages of loose-leaf paper pinned to the walls by thumbtacks all around. I crawled down onto a wall and plucked the nearest page from its place, unbearably curious as to what they all said. The handwriting was curvy and tilted as if inscribed at a feverish pace.

_Dear Diary,_

_My life has been Hell since my parents found out my secret. I'm a stranger in my own home. They never talk to me anymore. They just shoot daggers at me every time I walk into a room. I know something bad is on the way. I hear the whispers. I wish I could just run away, but I have nowhere to run to, no friends to speak of, no safety net at all... if only my life had started different, if only I'd been born right, maybe everything would be okay now. But as things are, I doubt my life will ever be okay. I'll only fall deeper and deeper into misery. I wish you had skin and blood, diary, because I really need someone to hold right now. I feel more alone than the most obscure planet in the farthest corner of the universe…_

It ended abruptly and the rest of that page was crinkly in places where it looked like the author couldn't help but get some tears and mucus on the page. Gross, but it wasn't meant for anyone to see. I crawled over to the next one.

_Dear Diary,_

_How can something that makes me so happy on the inside make others hate me so much? Why do I deserve this? Every day I spend wiping down tables and refilling glasses, I try not to think about the clock that's ticking. The motivational clock, the one that is counting down to an alarm which will sound the end of my ability to go on like this. How can I go on like this? I have no love, no light. There's not a person in the world to care for me. A girl can't live in a closed cell. There needs to be a window, and if she's lucky, a door. Emotions need to come into her so that she can give them back out. I'm just a shell. My mother told me to smile more. She said I was creeping the customers out with my robotic demeanor. Hell will freeze solid before I obey her. She is the same woman who told me to cut my hair, wear flat shoes, wash my face, put on a sweater… the same woman who tries to take away something as soon as she sees it makes me happy. I hope she gets what's coming to her._

_I'm sitting alone on my bed. My thoughts are too big and slippery to rest on a page. I'm nineteen years old and I still haven't experienced anything. I see the women on TV who have everything and appreciate nothing. Where's my first date, my first car, my first kiss, a birthday present now and then, a wedding ring, a chapel, a vacation, a smile from a stranger, a place to call home? I don't know what any of those things feel like. I feel nothing but isolation. The only person I love is myself, and that's something I do just to stay alive. How long before my life starts? What if my life ends tomorrow? No one would cry at my funeral. I would just float above, staring longingly at the world that I never got to enjoy. I need to lie down and cry now. I don't think I'll be getting to sleep…_

And a third one…

_Dear Diary,_

_I'm finally free. I left my family. I don't care if I die out here. The smell of the city is irresistible. I feel like the moon is shining just for me, so I can write in you one last time. I suppose I'm content to die here. At least I won't have to die hearing my mother reproach me endlessly even as I slip into the void… or even worse, hear the thick, stoic silence of my father's retracted love that always stood between us. I got some pitiful looks by a few people who walked by this alley and saw me sitting on my suitcase trying to think of what I should leave behind me in writing. I hate pity. I don't want anyone to pity me. All I ever wanted was a normal life. All the pity in the world could never make me normal. I don't care if no one ever reads these words, I'll state before God: my name is Citrine Hu. It has always been and will always be that. Anyone who calls me anything else is wrong. Anyone who says I'm lying is wrong. Anyone who says the way I am is wrong is wrong. Anyone who would do me harm is wrong. I've never done harm to anyone in all my life. This world has given me plenty of trouble, and I can't for the life of me think what my legacy will be except another unrequited soul moaning painfully in the night._

I picked up a few more from a different wall.

_Dear Diary,_

_I tried to live out here on my own, but I couldn't. I went back to the Glory Panda to ask my mother to let me work there again. She said she would, but I had to keep it a secret from my father and I could never move back into the house. So that's the deal. I eat whatever leftovers there are as my one meal at closing time and I work the rest of the day to earn that. It's better than begging for money. At least I get to wear what I want once I leave. I've gotten guys to buy me drinks at bars before wearing the clothes I still keep from when I had money. That's nice. Sleeping on cold ground isn't._

_Dear Diary,_

_I've decided that there's a way out of this life for me. My dream is to become a singer. It's all I can want anymore. I've always known I had a good voice, but I've been practicing lately and trying to get better. Someday I hope I'll be as good as Carrie Underwood. She auditioned for American Idol and voila, next thing she knew she was rich and famous. But I'm sure her life was amazing even before that, seeing how beautiful and confident she is. I figure that if I perform enough around town, someone from the industry is bound to notice me. This is Hollywood, after all! Since I live on the streets, I have plenty of time to go around and find out which places let you sing for free in front of people and when. There are lots of flyers on the streetlamps around here! I can't wait to start._

_Dear Diary,_

_I found a girl hiding behind some trash cans in one of the alleys that I sleep in today. She was really scared and tried to crawl away from me, and that's when I noticed that she didn't have any feet. I decided I ought to help her, and so I went back to the Glory Panda and managed to scrounge up some pork dumplings for her. She was really hungry. She's sleeping next to me right now. I'm going to try to help her as much as I can. She hasn't said anything yet, so I don't know if she can talk._

Just then, my reading was stopped short by a grinding sound from all around me. Dust shot out of the seams where the walls met and they started to slowly move inward with an unbearable scraping like a trash compactor. I started to feel very heavy. As I got heavier, I got smaller too, until I was the size of a marble but felt like I weighed five tons. Then a rust colored liquid started to gush from a soaked patch in the ceiling and gravity suddenly corrected itself so that I fell from the wall where I was perched to the carpeted floor. Another very far fall, because I was so tiny, but it was a very short one too because I fell like a block of lead. I crashed through the fuzzy canopy of the carpet and made a crater in the floor. Every fiber was like a redwood tree. I was inconceivably small. Then a flood of the rusty liquid came rushing through the beige rainforest and swept over me, but it didn't carry me along in its current because I was stuck in the ground and still getting heavier. It was the most putrid substance I've ever experienced. It was about one hundred degrees Fahrenheit and smelled like blood and coffee mixed together, which was absolutely disgusting. I lay completely submerged in the opaque floodwaters which burned my eyes, holding my breath and waiting to asphyxiate…

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

I wasn't quite sure what to think. I saw James knelt beside Katie, who looked absent-minded but otherwise much better, and Jo and Camille standing to the side seeming quite aloof. It bothered me that my stomach had made a flip when I saw James as I opened the door, and that it was starting to cramp up even then as I considered the possibilities of how his awakening had happened. It bothered me that I had something to hide, that I had a reason to feel guilty, that I had a reason to wonder. I hadn't done anything bad in a long time, and I remembered it being so fun before I realized that it actually kinda sucked. You always remember how much fun it was to do what you shouldn't have, but you never remember the aftermath and how you almost never got away with it. I was in way over my head, and I couldn't take any more looking over my shoulder. We all had too much to live for in California to go risking it all in the name of lust. I needed to nip my teenage affair in the bud and never let it happen again. The thing is, I know I'm a catch and I knew it would be hard to get James to give me up after the night we'd had. But I had to do it. I had to find a clean way out.

"Good morning James." I said awkwardly, noticing the spark in his eyes when he saw me. I wanted to pull him aside and ask what happened before I came in, but I had to do away with the pleasantries first. "How's Katie doing? Dr. Hollywood agreed to come have a look at her before he went to his office." I turned slightly to the man who had come in with me to suggest that the others acknowledge him.

"Good morning Doctor—" Camille started to say, but Jo tugged hard on her sleeve and whispered something in her ear. "Ahem, sorry to be rude but we have to go. Our parents are pretty worried." She took Jo's hand and they both shoved past us and into the hallway.

"Okay girls, thanks for watching Katie! Have fun!" I said tauntingly as they disappeared around the corner. I went to the couch and got on my knees beside James, trying to ignore his breath on my face as I did so. Dr. Hollywood closed the door to our apartment and sauntered over to stand behind the couch and look down at the three of us discerningly. "Katie, honey? How do you feel?" I asked her in a sweet murmur, taking her chin in my hand.

"Okay… no, actually I feel great. I'm definitely not sick anymore." She nodded reassuringly but her voice was raspy and uncharacteristically depressed.

"Are you sure?"

"Yup. Can I go to my room now?"

"But sweetie, what about your sleepwalking and the passing out, looking down at us from the ceiling?" she shook her head and shrugged.

"I think it was just a bad dream mom. The boys brought me home too late last night. I just need some more sleep."

"Well, if you say so… why don't you go to your brother's room and lie down. My room's got secret Christmas presents hidden in it." I winked and pinched her cheek. That lie didn't even hurt when I said it. _You must really be the worst mother to ever walk the Earth, Kristen. _I quieted that voice as well as I could. Some mistakes you just have to make to know better. Katie smiled halfheartedly, got up and went into Kendall and Logan's room, shutting the door behind her. Dr. Hollywood was smirking at me.

"Overreacting as usual, Mrs. Knight." He gloated. I couldn't believe I had agreed to go out with that slimy self-absorbed wannabe for nothing. _At least you can imagine that he's Fabio while you tune out everything he says. It's not that big of a stretch if you squint real hard. _I sighed and stood up.

"Yes, I suppose I was. Sorry for making such a fuss."

"Oh, nonsense. I'm glad you came to me for help. So… when should I pick you up tonight?"

"Tonight?" I confirmed, not realizing how deflated I sounded.

"Is that a problem?" he raised one dark eyebrow high.

"No, I suppose it isn't. Come on over around six. I don't want to be out too late." I didn't want to be out at all. I was _tired._

"Of course not. I'll see you at six then." He went to the door, opened it and turned back, narrowing his eyes at James. I dared to look at the boy as I hadn't since Dr. Hollywood had mentioned our date, which had made me wince as I knew the effect it would have on him. James looked livid and indignant, but the doctor wasn't the least bit intimidated by being stared down. He just gave a little chuckle. "Ciao, Mr. Diamond." He turned to me. I could tell that he had inferred the meaning of the odd energy between James and me, but it didn't faze him. In fact, I sensed that it satisfied him to steal a woman out from under the nose of a boy one third of his age. I found it hilarious that either of them claimed possession of me, seeing as I couldn't really care less whether I ever kissed a man again as long as I could sit down with a bowl of ice cream and watch my soaps once this was all over. "Ciao, milady." And he was gone, along with the stench of his overpriced cologne.

"What did Jo and Camille see?" I whispered sharply to James, ignoring his invalid feelings.

"More than they wanted to… but they're going to keep quiet."

"What, you mean you told them everything?"

"Well, they sort of guessed. But it doesn't matter because I'm sure they won't tell! We made a pact of silence. They won't tell my secret and I won't tell theirs."

"Their secret? What is it?"

"If I told you then I would be breaking the pact!"

"Shit James, whatever. This isn't high school gossip trading. This is the major league of hush. I just hope you haven't screwed everything up." He stared at me for a beat. He almost seemed hurt, but it was hard to see past his wall of plump eyelashes and fake personalities to be sure of it.

"So you and Dr. Hollywood are…"

"No James, we aren't. It's just something I had to agree to if I wanted him to come with me. It's a harmless night of free drinks and watching the seconds go by on his fake Rolex while I nod and pretend to listen about his latest exploit in the exciting field of breast augmentation. But besides that… about what happened last night… you know it can't happen again right? It didn't mean anything to you, did it? I mean, I was just lonely and confused and…" he was staring at me like that again. It was a side of him I didn't understand. That side of him might have… actual feelings, and for me no less, which was terrifying. "We wouldn't be able to keep it up, James, even if we tried. Our lives would just get more and more complicated until one day we would wake up and _snap! _One of us would fall apart and spill the beans. Then our lives would go up in smoke. Things need to stay just the way they were before we went out last night." He looked at the floor and swallowed hard, a swallow full of childish tears and words he knew he shouldn't say. "Besides, I kinda like being your cool mom. We can still hang out and watch movies together like before. The kisses just need to stay on the cheek." I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. He frowned, blinked a dozen times and started to walk towards the door. "James, where are you going?"

"I just need some air." He sounded totally choked up. I wanted to hug him long and hard to make up for what I had just had to say, but I knew I needed to let him lick his own wounds and get over whatever he thought he was feeling. I let him leave the apartment with his hands in his pockets and his eyes firmly set on the ground in front of him. _**You did the right thing, Kristy. Things will be normal again before you know it. All is as it should be. **_I shook my head to try to get his voice out of it. _Get outta my head, Kyle. I don't need your help to run my life anymore. I've been doing just fine without you.__** I see, and you consider a careless tryst with one of our son's best friends in our daughter's room just fine?**__ Yes, I do, because I am a GROWN WOMAN and I can do whatever I so please.__** By the time this is really over, you'll be running back to me to pick up the pieces.**__ Really, Kyle? And how the Hell are you gonna pick up ANYTHING when you're buried across two mountain ranges under six feet of dirt when all the worms and maggots have already EATEN the FLESH right off of your BONES! _I stomped my foot and punched myself in the head to make him shut up. Then I went to the freezer, pulled out an unopened pint of coffee chocolate chip and set to work on it. _The View _would be on soon enough. Once I was done eating my ice cream I was gonna clean my room, and once I was done cleaning my room I was gonna paint my toenails, and once I was done painting my toenails I was gonna go buy some real birthday presents for my daughter (I had actually already bought all my Christmas presents in July). That's Mama Knight for sure; the perfect mom who had it all together. Certainly not some desperate floosy that sleeps with teenage boys while being haunted by her dead husband. Certainly not.

**Citrine's Dream**

**Katie's POV**

I woke up slowly to the sound of waves crashing on a beach. I peacefully entertained the delusion of being back in L.A. and spending the day by the water with my family, but I remembered where I was and eventually convinced myself that I had to open my eyes. Far above me was a cracked ceiling the color of August honey with some sick poison still trickling out. I sat up. I had washed up on one of the pages of Citrine's diary that had fallen off of the wall. It was floating on a vast sea of coffee blood. All of the walls had disappeared and the ceiling simply went on up to the vanishing point on the horizon where everything became foggy. The sea was still steaming hot and that steam was creating a light cloud cover which was beginning to obscure the light bulb sun. I had grown to the size of a cockroach and was at a natural weight, but getting lighter every second. Walking like a spaceman and barely holding on to the gravity of the page, I traveled to the heading of the entry. I was determined to finish reading that last page before I floated away. I walked from one end of the paper to the other, reading it very slowly.

_Dear Diary,_

_I know that, up 'til now, you've only known yourself as a simple notebook, but I'm declaring you my diary from this day forth because I need someplace to write down what I can't say out loud. I trust you to be a loyal confidant. I guess I should tell you about myself. I'll start at the beginning. I've always known that there was something special about me. Other people don't seem to get it. I think differently. I see the magic in the world that other people ignore. Even before I realized what was different, I knew that I had a secret and that it was a reason for me to always keep other people at arm's length. It's been over a year since I admitted to myself what I've known all along. I've thought about it every day since then and every day it makes more sense. I know what's special about me and what it will take to fix it, but the only question is how do I start? How do I take this dead-end life and use it to launch my dreams into orbit? How do I leave the past behind so that I can be truly alive someday in the future? All I know is that I have a long and hard path ahead of me, and that it will take all the self-surety and faith that I have to traverse it. Until I reach that pot of gold at the end, I'm gonna keep my grandpa's citrine necklace close to my heart. It's the only beautiful thing I own, and I can always count on it to remind me of who I really am. I really like the sound of it, too. I always have. Citrine. It's such a nice name. Well, I'm ready for bed. I'll write more some other day. Goodnight, diary. _

_Sincerely,_

_Wally Hu_

I could hold onto the page no longer. I let go of it and rose up into the steamy clouds, which were now quite thick and had cast the whole room into twilight. I rose and rose until my head hit the ceiling, and then I groped my way along until I found the hole where the ceiling had given way and the fetid ocean had poured out. I was about as big as a rabbit by then and had to squeeze with all my might to get through, but once I was out I shot up like a bubble in the blink of an eye.

I saw my brother's face wet with tears looking down at me and I reached out to him to hold me up and keep me from falling back down into the abyss. Scarcely lucid, I spat out the only words that came to mind. "Kendall… help me…!" but there was nothing he could do. Citrine's eyelids shut me out from the world like two more iron doors, and all was blackness. My soul was surrendered to the mercy of the universe.

**Citrine's Dream Come True**

I had pulled it off. It was half the miracle of God that I had always prayed for, and half my own cunning and relentless drive that brought me to that moment in Kendall's room. As soon as I closed the door, I jumped onto his insanely comfortable, unmade bed and writhed around in his dirty sheets. It was a better sensation than anything I'd ever felt before. It was pure bliss. His pillow smelled so much like his head that it made mine spin. I laughed out loud and buried my face in it a second time.

"The rainbow road is over, diary. This is our pot of gold." I said joyfully and jumped up and down with my stubby little legs for a while before collapsing and taking it all in. It was all there. The new life, the fresh start. I had always known that no matter how hard I tried in my old life, I would never really be complete. I could work my way out of homelessness and into independence with the virtue of talent alone; I could save up for all the surgeries the world had to offer; I could even meet the perfect man and become his wife, but that one little thing would always be missing. The incompleteness. The mistake that God made. The name that my parents gave me. Walter Hu. How long had it been since I called myself that? Lying there in Katie's body, my whole past life just seemed like one long, terrible nightmare. I had found my chance to be normal, my chance to live a real life and get all the things that I deserved, chief among them simply happiness. I had my youth back and I would get to experience everything again, only this time with a loving and caring mother and a very sexy brother. I had all the money that a girl could ever want. Karma's check was in the mail.

I looked down at my new body. Everything was in the right place. I felt good for the first time ever. Sure, puberty was still on the horizon, but having been through what I went through in my first puberty, I figured that I would probably enjoy it. I relished the idea of having kids one day. I even dreamed that, once enough years had gone by, I might forget what it was ever like to be Wally. I would be complete.

"No matter what happens, I promise myself this: I will never answer to Wally again. Citrine is dead too. From this day forward, I am Katie Knight. I am beautiful and perfect. Thank you, God! I promise that you've made the right choice, even if I had to do the wrong thing. Never again will I know the pain of being that ugly, pathetic, wretched boy roaming the streets in women's clothes looking for love wherever she could find it. This is our someday."


	14. Chapter 14

**Rose's POV**

I guess you could say I live a comfortable life. I've never been a very motivated person. There was a time when I wanted to go to college and be a famous journalist, but by the time I graduated high school I was spent with the academic scene. For a while, I was spent with everything. My heart was stomped on by too many men to count, none of them bothering to wipe their shoes before they came in, some of their boots having left filthy prints which can be seen on me even today. After my last breakup with an alcoholic truck driver named Julius, I swore off men forever. I also started smoking. After a couple years of sleeping all day and writing stories all night (not to mention driving my parents crazy), I moved out of my childhood home and got a job as a waitress. I've been a waitress ever since, for about thirty years. I haven't had a boyfriend for just as long, but I get by. I find that I enjoy life more with every year that passes. I enjoy being alone and watching the world go by. I enjoy counting all the problems that other people have that I do without. I enjoy feeling the simple goodness of things like cheddar and sour cream Ruffles crushed up into a tuna casserole. Nobody's more easy-going than me.

It was a nice, salty day by the sea in L.A. when my brother showed up at the Sunrise Café (where I'd been working for a few months after getting laid off at a diner in a much shittier part of town, despite being a seven-year veteran and general matriarch of the staff). Like usual, he was anything but peaceful. He asked me if I had time to talk. I said sure and took my break. I hadn't seen him for a while and he had never showed up at the Sunrise before. He seemed nervous and paranoid, but that was nothing new. We had been pretty good friends as kids, though he always kind of creeped me out. I was the white trash slut to all the other kids in school and he was my pathetically nerdy older brother who got even more grief for living in the same house as me (a place which, it was said, got more in-and-out traffic than the drive-thru where I worked). We went and sat at a table in the corner of the dining room and I poured him a cup of java. He made a grimace and pushed it away.

"What's wrong Reggie? Been drinkin' too much o' the Black Death lately? I've never seen you turn down a free drink. Hell, I've never seen you turn down anything."

"I don't think I'll ever drink another cup of coffee as long as I live, Rosie. I've done something bad. Really bad. Twice. I'm not sure where to go from here."

I sat down opposite him and tried to get him to look me in the eyes. He just stared blankly out the window behind me where an old couple was crossing the street with a French bulldog puppy. His eyes glistened with tears. I put my hand on his arm. He jerked it away and bared his teeth at me.

"You can tell me what you did, hun. It can't be that bad. C'mon, your sister's no saint." I forced a weak smile. He finally looked at me. A serpentine shiver bolted up my spine and froze my whole body. I felt my breath get heavy with fear. He had the eyes of a caged panther. They almost reminded me of Julius' eyes when he came at me with a hunter's knife that one night after downing two bottles of whiskey. "It's not that bad… is it?"

"As bad as it gets, little sister." And then he broke down and started to cry. I got up and put my arm around him and told him we should go somewhere more private. In an alley next to the daycare playground next door, my brother told me how he killed a young transvestite after trying to rape her, then how he killed his good friend the groundskeeper to keep him from telling. I didn't hold it against him, but my life was about to get a helluva lot more complicated. That's just one of the few things I know to be true of this world, though: you protect your family. If you can't manage that, everything else is pointless.

**Kendall's POV**

I asked Kelly about the meeting and she passively replied that, no matter what happened between her and Gustavo, we wouldn't, or rather we couldn't manage the band without him. She said she had already called him three times with no luck, and he was even less likely to answer to me or any of the guys. She started to walk away and I asked her where she was going. She said she was going home to put on a fresh coat of My Boss is Beating Me Up but I Don't Want Anyone to Notice color foundation, and then she was going to go look for that same man in all the places she knew he would be.

"It's from the new domestic abuse line by Mac." She said dryly and made her exit. I shook my head and made my way to the elevators. I couldn't have imagined a person that I wanted to see less than who was standing inside the compartment as the doors opened in front of me in that moment. I was face-to-face-to-mink stole with none other than Mercedes Griffin.

"Kendalllll!" she squealed and wrapped her arms around my neck. "I'm so glad you're here!"

"That makes one of us…" I mumbled.

"What was that?" she asked with a hint of menace, having heard me full well.

"I said… I missed you a whole bunch!" I lied, grinding my teeth.

"Well that's very sweet cutie pie, but perfectly understandable as well. I can't imagine what I would do if I had to be without me. I would be forlorn and crippled with longing for me! Ahaha!" she drew out her fake laughing as she clutched the dead weasel around her neck, and once she was done she leered at me for a moment, as if wanting me to compliment her some more, then continued when she was sure that I was done. "Are the other big timers here with you?"

"Nope. Things have been… strange, to say the least, for the last twelve hours. We're all kind of swept up in our own whirlwinds of destiny and chance with no—"

"Hey, that's super interesting but I came to get some more money from my dad so I'm gonna go find him." She nudged past me and strutted down the hall in her absurdly high heels. I was about to get on the elevator when I realized that she was headed straight for the carnage that had been left behind in Gustavo's office and that I needed to stall her to keep her father from finding out what happened. I knew that if Griffin found out about the drama by seeing the damage it caused to his property, he would be much less kind about helping us than if we told him later on behind Gustavo's back. So I texted Kelly to warn her then ran to catch up with the diva.

**Kelly's POV**

I was about to leave my office when I got a text message from Kendall.

**The Griffins are in the building. I'm stalling Mercedes. We need to make it look like nothing happened here for the time being.**

He was right. I went and found a couple of janitors, gave them very specific instructions and had them sent off just as I heard polished, authentic leather shoes clacking towards me from behind at a deliberate and unhurried pace. I saw his shadow rise behind me. I took a deep breath and turned around.

"Good morning, Mr. Griffin."

"Good morning Kelly. Is Gustavo around?"

"No sir, he's, um—he's out running some errands. Do you have a message for him?"

"I've been trying to contact him for an hour. His phone seems to be turned off. The one I bought him is never supposed to be off. I thought he was holding a meeting with his boy band this morning."

"Well yes, that was going to happen but the boys are being a bit slippery right now so we're having to delay the meeting until we can get them all in one place." I made it all sound very excusable, but Griffin didn't look pleased.

"But rather than going to find them, Gustavo is running errands. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't his title 'manager'? So what do you suppose it says about him if his boys are unmanageable?"

I swallowed hard and closed my eyes when I realized they were wet. _No way in Hell you're gonna cry in front of your boss' boss, Kelly. Wait until you're home. Wait until you're home and then cry while Alicia Keys sings louder so your neighbors don't hear. _"I'm sorry sir. I'm going to go look for him now and then we're going to round up the boys as quickly as possible. Do you have a message for him?"

"Yes. Tell him that I've moved the release date of _BTR _up to the 11th."

"One day earlier? But why?"

"Because I promised my daughter that I'd take her pony riding on the twelfth and I don't want any business calls during our family time. I'm sure that Gustavo realizes this, but tell him that his resilience in handling this change of plans will be heavily considered when Big Time Rush's contract is negotiated in a couple of months. His track record is the worst of all my producers, and my optimism is guarded for the time being. He knows that to prove me wrong he has to move more albums off the shelves that ever before. This is his last chance, which means it's all of yours, too. Make or break, Kelly. Chop chop!"

Without leaving me time to respond, he was gone. There was a slim chance he might see the mess if I didn't change his course, but I was willing to take that chance. I literally ran down three flights of stairs to the street and called a cab to take me home. I couldn't help myself; I broke down in the grungy backseat while the driver sang along terribly to Sugarland on the other side of the bulletproof glass barrier. _Ain't nobody ever gave Kelly Wainwright an easy go at anything. I barely made my way out of my father's suffocating arms alive, only to be eaten up and spit out by L.A. itself, a city which is really just a big vile monster whose bowels we all claw our way through. I've been barely getting by for so long that I forgot what it means to be happy, and I certainly forgot what it means to love. In this moment, I would trade everything just to be in Percy's arms for one last night… but I'm still holding out for the day when I find a good man and a good living in a place where the sun always shines, just like the books I read when I was little. How long until I give up on that too? After all, a part of me knows that even if I did find such a place, by the time it happened I would be so far gone from sanity that I would carry the dark storm cloud of my past all along and never see the sun as it really was. So things aren't going to get much better for this weary soul before doomsday. I might as well seize the day in front of me._

**Kendall's POV**

"Mercedes! Wait up!"

She flowed one-hundred and eighty degrees with one step and a toss of her wavy dirty blond hair. "Yes, Kendall."

"What?"

"The answer is yes. I'll go on a date with you."

"But I wasn't even going to—"

"That's okay! Guys need a push every now and then. I know I can be intimidating and it's only natural that you would be shy. So I'm helping you out! I'll pick you up at seven and we'll go to the Chocolate Warehouse. I'll pay for dinner if you bring your sweet ass for dessert." She winked and cackled all the way down the hall. I stood totally snowed for a beat then ran after her again, but I was too late. She was looking at herself in a pocket mirror and almost walked past the busted window, but she stopped and looked down when one of her pumps crushed a shard of glass. She looked at the window, then inside, and then turned to me as I came to stand beside her again.

"Kendall, have you been playing rough with your friends again?" she asked, raising her thin eyebrows. The sound of her voice, paired with the condescension and presumptuousness that it always contained, made me want to throw her into a river. But in the end, both of our salaries came from Griffin and that meant we were on the same side.

"Yeah, kind of. As soon as Carlos declared Gustavo's paperweight a puck and we all grabbed something to use as a stick, it was all over. Please don't tell your dad!" I put my hands together and pleaded with her.

"Why would I ever do anything that would get my darling Kenny in troubbie-wubbie?" she pinched my cheek. "After all, we're basically totally dating by now. My lips are sealed. No worries!" she smiled wide and left me again, turning the corner. I heard a second set of footsteps join in with hers followed by a shrill "Daddy!" and a cacophony of loud shoe sounds as she ran to give him a hug. "I'm so glad you're here! I need some money to pay my manicurist and take Kendall Knight to the Chocolate Warehouse."

"You're taking Kendall out? On a date?"

"Yeah, isn't it fun?"

"Is he here?"

"Well yes, I just talked to him but don't—" I heard him coming closer to the corner, "daddy stop! Don't go that way. Kendall's already left by now. Let's go to your office and call mommy together." Without a moment to spare, two janitors came up behind me and I told them to be quiet and start cleaning up the glass and putting everything back in order. I heard Griffin concede to his pushy daughter and go back the way he came. I sighed in relief. After going in and inspecting the room, one of the men came back out.

"What about the hole in the wall?"

I ran my hand through my hair and shrugged. "Just… move the furniture around so you can't see it."

**James' POV**

I stood at the edge of the tape border that was strung across the hallway with the elevators up to the residential levels and looked in on the crime scene. The detectives were still deciphering all the clues to be found and so nothing had been moved from precisely the place it was when they arrived. Buddha Bob's corpse still lay in its defeated position near the front doors and a couple of women with thick glasses hovered over him, taking notes on the bruises on his back. I saw one man squat down and suck up a bit of the blood that was streaked across the floor with a syringe and then blow it out into a test tube, sealing it with a cork. A woman with wiry blond hair and the looks of having a good heart wandered out of Bitters' break room with a tortured look on her face. I called her over to me.

"What happened in there?" I asked, gesturing to the room.

"It appears to be the scene of a murder…" she paused and bit her lip, looking back at Bob then to me again. "Only that does too. I mean, the blood comes in a steady trail from inside the break room, where it's mixed up with a bunch of spilt coffee and splattered on the wall along with some bone fragments, out the front doors, across the patio, through the parking lot and stops at an empty parking space. But the only body is lying right in the middle of it. In fact, the trail actually goes _around _him."

"So you don't think all this blood is Bob's?"

"Definitely not. The only blood he looks to have shed is in a neat puddle around his head. He probably died in seconds from a powerful, blunt strike. All the mess and mayhem around here is from another murder—probably a subsequent one—that was probably committed to cover up the first. We're going to run the blood through the crime lab while our officers are on the lookout for a body… but assuming that the perpetrator left the Palm Woods with it, well damn, it could be anywhere."

"My friends said Bitters did it." I blurted out.

"You mean Reginald Bitters, the owner of the hotel? They think he killed them? Where'd they hear that?"

"I dunno; you'd have to ask them. But they knew about the two murders." By now my mouth was off and running, leaving my brain at a slow trot.

"Where are they? We need to question them right away!"

I was about to tell her which apartments they were in when I realized I done goofed up. The detective was so smart and pretty that I just wanted to tell her everything I could. According to the agreement, Jo, Camille and I had all been at Club 'Cuda the night before, when it was what the girls had actually been doing that had led them to know about Bitters and the two murders. What _had _they been doing? Had they witnessed the murders themselves or just the aftermath? Either way, there was no stopping the woman before me at that point. Jo, Camille and I would have to think on our feet.

"I'll go get them and bring them down. Five minutes!" I said and hurried to the elevator, leaving her looking suspicious on the other side of the tape.

**Camille's POV**

"Did your parents buy the story about James kidnapping us for a night of frivolous partying?" I asked my gorgeous partner in crime through my bedroom wall.

"Every word and they'd like to skin him alive."

"Isn't blackmail just the bee's knees?"

"Actually, yeah! But if it were at anyone else's expense I would feel terrible." We both giggled and I heard Jo sigh. "Did they still ground you too?"

"Yup. Looks like we're gonna be spending the next four weeks pressed up against this wall. No internet, no phone, no outside. Thank God I have you." I hated myself for letting that last part slip out. I had a feeling that despite everything she had done the night before, Jo still wasn't in love with me. Hell, I still doubted that she even liked me. _I'm just her only lifeline… for now. Once our sentences are served, she'll probably go back to brunch and sun-tanning with the Jennifers._

"Out of everyone to get grounded for, Camille, I'm glad I did this with you. I haven't felt the way I did last night since I moved here. Thanks for watching Breakfast at Tiffany's with me, getting naked with me, and then hiding from a bloodthirsty murderer with me. I didn't know any bitch crazy enough to do all that except me. I'm glad you're up for anything." I smiled so wide my face hurt and was about to say something totally stupid when my doorbell rang. I left my room to watch my dad answer the door from the hallway. James was standing there.

"Is Camille in there?" he asked breathlessly.

"Now listen here, young man, 'cause I've got a few words for you! How dare you take my daughter out without asking my permission or even informing me, then bring her back in the wee hours of the morning when a—"

"SHE KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT THE MURDERS!" he yelled then looked over my silenced father's shoulder at me. "Don't you?"

I nodded and my dad looked back at me. "What is he talking about?" He asked, sounding scared.

"Dad, can I talk to James outside for a minute?"

"I suppose so but I intend to find out what all this is about!"

"You will, dad, in a minute." I said and went out the door, closing it in his face. "Dammit, James."

"I know Camille, I'm sorry. I accidentally let it slip to one of the detectives downstairs that you and Jo told me that Bitters killed Bob and the other person… but why don't they know that if you do?"

"Probably because we're the only witnesses and we weren't going to tell them what we knew just because we wanted to save our own selfish asses." Just then, Jo came into the hallway and looked at us questioningly. "James told a detective what we told him about the murders. Our story needs to be amended."

First, we told James everything that we saw so that we were all on one page. Then Jo spoke up. "You know, this isn't that big of a deal. We still have time to give our statements to the police without seeming suspicious. It's simple: the three of us were coming back to the Palm Woods at a reasonable hour. We saw what we saw. We left the Palm Woods quickly out of fear—"

"And then we partied for the rest of the night!" James said sarcastically. "Yeah, that doesn't sound made up at all."

"Well, let's merge the truth and the lie then. Jo and I saw Bitters, you didn't. That's the truth. Jo and I fell asleep hiding in Mrs. Knight's car and you went back to the club—"

"Because you had only come back to make sure we got home okay!" Jo interjected.

"Yeah, because we were tired!" I went on, "Then you stayed out all night because you were still feeling rowdy, then came home while Jo and I were babysitting Katie and we told you what we saw. Can we all agree to and work to uphold that fabricated series of events?" the other two nodded and we put all our hands together and threw them up in the air. "Long live the pact of silence!"

**Gina's POV**

After about five minutes, as promised, the boy returned with his two friends and they agreed to be questioned. With things being as urgent as they were, I took them into an alcove full of vending machines and conducted the interview there. I made a note to question Mrs. Knight to make sure her story about finding the girls in her car matched up. I made sure that they were positive it was Mr. Bitters that chased them, and they were. The boy had an interesting reaction when the blonde girl described the victim in the tarp as a young Asian woman. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it. I was about to let them all loose when a fourth teenager appeared.

"James!" he said, giving the other boy a hug. "You're okay! Where have you been?"

"At Club 'Cuda man, remember I told you I was going out to have fun last night? I ended up taking Jo and Camille with me, then bringing them back around midnight. When I got home this morning they told me that they saw Bitters dragging a body. He's probably the one who killed Buddha Bob."

"B-Bitters did that?" he looked sick.

"That's not all." One of the girls added, "He killed an Asian woman too."

"Citrine!" he immediately exclaimed.

"What?" the other three asked at once.

"Citrine Hu, the waitress from the Glory Panda. We found her at Rocque Records this morning. She's not dead, but well close. Oh my God, Bitters tried to kill her! What are the odds! He killed her here and dragged her out, then took her across town?"

"Really Kendall, that doesn't seem likely at all." James said. "I'm guessing it was a different Asian woman." Kendall dug around in his pocket and brought out a crumpled note.

"Run this for fingerprints! I found it on Citrine's body. If Bitters attacked her, he wrote this too." I wrote in my notes that a battered woman fitting the description named Citrine Hu should be in a nearby hospital and that she needed to be investigated. I also took the paper from Kendall and, after a few more questions, left the kids to tell my colleagues about all the new information they'd given me. As I was still in earshot, I heard Kendall say, "James, I wasn't going to say anything with the police officer there but you weren't at Club 'Cuda last night and I know it. So where were you and why did you lie?" I stopped and listened from outside the alcove.

"Yes I was, dude what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about how Logan, Carlos and Freight Train searched that place up and down and didn't find any trace of you. We thought you'd be there and we went to collect you and force you to come to the meeting. They didn't see Jo or Camille, either."

"…so that must've been before we went. Doesn't prove a thing."

I made a note of that too.

**Citrine's POV**

When I finally came out of my new brother's room, my new mother was sitting on the couch with James and her aforementioned son. I had no idea how long my nap had lasted, but it had been the best of my life. _The last of my old life, the first of my new one. _I blushed when Kendall looked at me, remembering the inappropriate dream I'd had about him just minutes earlier.

"How are you feeling Katie?" he asked sweetly. I shrugged and smiled, showing my dimples.

"Pretty much totally awesome. What time is it?" I sat down next to him and he smiled too, curious.

"Almost six," my new mom said, "which means it's almost time for me to waste the rest of my day on an incorrigible narcissist who has too much money to ignore."

"Well put mother," the boy beside me responded, "and my date will be showing up in about an hour as well."

"Which means it's just you and I stuck at home." James said to me. When I looked at him, a vision flashed before my eyes. As soon as it was over, I had forgotten every detail. As I sat trying to remember one single thing about all that I had just seen, a singular thought came to my mind, and it got so strong that I had to say it out loud.

"Mom, Kendall… be careful tonight."

Mrs. Knight cocked her head at me. "Why do you say that Katie?"

"Because someone at the Chocolate Warehouse is going to die before the night is over."


	15. Chapter 15

**Gustavo's POV**

I had one stop left before my day was done and my turkey was cooked. Ever since I left my recording studio about nine hours earlier, I had been on the biggest binge of my life, driving all around town to all my favorite restaurants and ordering all my favorite things. I just wanted to forget about everything. Kelly and Freight Train together took three plates of nachos, chili cheese fries and corned beef hash to forget. Griffin's unreachably high expectations took four more milkshakes and two bags of flaming hot Cheetos to push out of my mind. Just to smooth it all over, I guzzled a couple bottles of vodka before resuming inundating and suffocating myself with calories, desperately attempting just to not feel or think anything. Before I knew it, the sun had started to set and I felt so absolutely terribly shitty that all I could stand to do was crawl into bed and hope that I had the courage to live in the morning. But that didn't mean I was done. No, my sweet tooth still had two cents to give before it would let me give up. It dragged me back behind the wheel of my Hummer and drove me to the Chocolate Warehouse. It wanted a double-decker fudge fountain toffee caramel Hell-on-Earth brownie, and that was the only place in the world that sold it. The reservation list was full to bursting, as was I, but neither of those conditions stopped me from getting my favorite table in the back of the restaurant. After all, I am Gustavo Rocque! My reputation precedes me, as does my appetite.

**Kelly's POV**

I was one step behind my boss all day long. I just couldn't seem to catch up with him. No matter which place I thought to go next, he had always just left. I was about to give up and try to call him one last time when I remembered one place I hadn't tried yet.

"At the end of a binge, Gustavo always asks for a brownie. The Chocolate Warehouse has the best brownies in town! I can see it now: Gustavo at his favorite table in the back of the restaurant, barely finishing his double-decker fudge fountain toffee caramel Hell-on-Earth brownie and very much wanting to vomit, yet still calling the waitress over to bring him a bottle of… red wine. Yeah, he would order red wine. Damn, I know him too well. I might as well be his wife instead of his assistant." At that thought, a shiver went through me and I tore my mind from the subject and set my GPS for the Chocolate Warehouse. I turned up the radio and the Kings of Leon were playing. Their songs always made me feel soul-crushingly lonely. Just what I needed. Not.

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

I got back from my shopping trip to see that the police still hadn't gone home and that I had to haul all my bags from Limited Too, GAP, FAO Schwarz, Best Buy and The Sharper Image all the way around the Palm Woods perimeter and through the back door. To make matters worse, I was intercepted by a blonde detective at the elevators.

"Are you Mrs. Knight?" she asked.

"I could be. Who are you?"

"Detective Gina Simms. I talked to four of the teenagers of the Palm Woods brood this morning about the attacks that occurred last night and they were very helpful. However, they're all emotionally unstable from being caught up in all the drama and tragedy. I'm eager to speak to an adult who knows something of what might have really gone on."

"Whatever they said, it's the truth. Jo and Camille caught Bitters in the act so if you haven't already talked to them then that would be a good idea."

"I already did. Do you think that Bitters was capable of something like this?"

I thought for a moment about all that Bitters had done since we moved into his hotel. It didn't take long for me to speak. "Absolutely. The sooner you find him, the sooner this whole mess is over." I started to leave.

"Mrs. Knight, wait one minute. I wouldn't ask you to implicate your son, but do you think that James, Jo or Camille might have had more to do with the murder than they're letting on?"

I narrowed my eyes at her. "I understand being suspicious of those two bosom buddies, but stay away from James. Trust me when I say he could not possibly have had _anything_ to do with Buddha Bob's death." Exasperated, I mounted the elevator and went to my apartment. Kendall and James were already sitting inside watching Jersey Shore. "Good afternoon boys." I said, setting down my bags and avoiding James' gaze completely in fear of getting caught in it and having my son notice.

"Mom, what's all that?"

"Just some birthday presents for Katie."

"Didn't you just spend all of last night buying Christmas presents?"

"Maybe so, but I couldn't exactly stand to stay around here with all the police hanging around. It's trying." I left out the part about feeling like the worst mom in the world and selfishly needing to swipe that feeling away with my credit card.

"I heard you got a date tonight with Dr. Hollywood." He raised his eyebrows and gave a taunting smile.

"Yeah, yeah don't get cheeky. I'm just humoring him. Gotta play the field, right? It's nothing…" I looked at James; I couldn't help myself. His eyes on mine smelled like leather and cigarettes. "…serious."

"Kendall's in the same boat. He somehow got himself indentured to Mercedes Griffin and ended up becoming her arm candy du soir." James stole a glance at Kendall after telling me this and I felt like I had been walking on hot coals and had only a moment to rest my feet on cold mud before he put me right back onto them. Kendall was about to say something in regards to our intense and unremitting optical tug-of-war when his bedroom door opened and my daughter came out, gave him a very strange look and adopted a giddy demeanor.

**James' POV**

"The Chocolate Warehouse? That's where Mercedes said she wanted to go for dinner tonight." Kendall said, seeming alarmed.

"Really? Don't go! No way, you have to go somewhere else." Katie pleaded with her brother in terror.

"What makes you think that someone is going to die, anyway?"

"I had a vision. I saw everything that's going to happen before I go to bed tonight. The problem is I forgot it all. I only know that today is someone's last day and it has to do with the Chocolate Warehouse."

"Katie… maybe you should lay back down. You've never spoken of having visions before…" I tried to make her see reason.

"I know James but that doesn't matter! This is for real! I've never been so sure of anything and—" the doorbell rang and Katie turned to it dreadfully, forgetting the rest of her imploration. Kendall glanced sideways uneasily at his sister as he answered it. Mercedes stood in a blindingly glittery silver cocktail dress that shone brighter than a mirror ball and swayed this way and that with the slightest movement thanks to its being totally covered in fringe. To make matters tackier, her hair was done up in an unparticular nest with a little black hat pinned in it that shrouded the mishmash in mesh and she was decked out in (presumably real) flapper-length pearl necklaces. The only pieces I envied were the black gladiator heels. I had to admit she had a way in them.

"Good evening my fine gentleman." She cooed and held out her hand for him to kiss. He did, begrudgingly, then invited her in. "You don't seem to be ready yet." She said looking him up and down as an art teacher with unrealistic standards would the subpar work of her debutant pupil.

"You're an hour early."

"Am I? Didn't I say I'd pick you up at six? Never mind, don't contradict me over such a trifle. I'll just sit here and wait for you." She turned to Mrs. Knight. "Do you have any tea?"

"Yeah, sure. C'mon, I'll let you pick something out." She got up and led Mercedes to the kitchen. Kendall sighed and rolled his eyes for me and Katie to see before going to his room to put on something with long sleeves in a neutral color. The doorbell rang again before I could say anything to Katie, who seemed to grow more anxious with every moment. I was met on the other side with the repellent sneer of Dr. Hollywood. His smugness only intensified upon his acknowledgement of me. It was all I could do not to throw him down and wring his neck. I told him Kristen was in the kitchen and fled quickly to my room.

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

What my daughter had said about the death of someone who would be at the Chocolate Warehouse disturbed me profoundly, not because I took any serious account of it as a precognitive revelation but because my daughter was not one to talk of death or the supernatural, both of which she seemed consumed by that day. I took solace in the presumption that Dr. Hollywood made far too much money in his private practice to take me somewhere as upper-middle class as the Chocolate Warehouse. I expected some fabulous old French joint with all the integrity of an aging madam such as myself. Such a selection is what good taste would dictate. But after showing Mercedes our tea bags, kissing my daughter goodbye ("Everything will be fine, sweetie, I promise. Just watch the new iCarly on TV and order some pizza and everything will seem 100% better in the morning."), climbing into the doctor's hybrid and riding a little ways downtown, I was proven terribly, serendipitously wrong.

"We're not eating here, are we?" I asked, trying weakly to mask my disdain.

"What's wrong? Don't you like the Chocolate Warehouse?"

**Kelly's POV**

I gave the valet my keys and stepped slowly into the packed waiting area. Nudging my way through the stubborn and hungry crowd, I craned my neck to try to get a view of Gustavo's favorite table. Yes, that powder blue tracksuit and newsboy cap were unmistakable. No one else would get into a restaurant like that on its busiest night dressed like he was going to a yoga class. I snuck past the maître d' and started on a beeline in my boss' direction when a familiar voice made me turn around. _We have to stop meeting like this,_ I thought.

"Kelly! Hey, what are you doing here?" Kendall laughed. Mercedes eyed me with cautious curiosity.

"Meeting Gustavo. I finally caught up with him. We've, uh… we've got a lot to work out." I said the last part more for the heiress' benefit, seeing as it would be perfectly obvious to the boy. "You two are on a date?"

Kendall tried to say something contrary, but Mercedes butted in. "Yes, we are." She batted her eyelashes and took his hand for emphasis. He shrugged, grabbed a breadstick with his free hand and bit down on it.

"Have fun with that." I taunted and left them before I could be stalled any longer. God forbid Gustavo see me while I was wasting time and leave before I could get to him. I covered another half of the distance between us when I heard my name called again. "_What?_" I snapped impatiently and whipped around in the voice's direction.

"Well cheese and crackers Kelly, no need to bite my head off. I hear the chicken parmesan is much better." Logan gave a disgustingly adorable grin and across the table Carlos laughed despite the absence of any humor in what he had said.

"Oh my God, y'all are here too?" I let my face fall into my open palm. _Ain't nobody ever gave Kelly Wainwright an easy go at anything. _"I really hope Gustavo doesn't make any kind of scene. His whole reputation is in this room."

"Gustavo's here too?" Carlos asked through a mouthful of Caesar salad.

"Yeah. We're gonna talk some things through. Hey, by the way, where the Hell did you two go this morning? You said you were coming up and then you totally disappeared!"

The boys shared a gleefully secretive look. "We, um… something came up." Logan stated vaguely, prompting Carlos to burst into giggles. "But I promise that we'll come to the meeting tomorrow!"

"Right, the meeting tomorrow which we should have had yesterday. This is what I get for trying to tie down a bunch of teenage boys. It's impossible! You'll be the death of all of us!"

"Kelly?" for the third time, a voice behind me called my name. It took all my temperance not to go running out of that place hoppin' and hollerin' like Daffy Duck. I didn't want to turn around, so I made a compromise and turned halfway.

"Mrs. Knight and Dr. Hollywood. Of course you're here. Anyone else want to show up?" I asked loudly to the restaurant at large. "My dentist, Jordin Sparks, my dead great-grandfather? Mr. Fujisaki, I'm sure you're in here somewhere!"

"Hey Mama K." Carlos and Logan said, waving pitifully.

"Hey Carlos, Logan." Mrs. Knight nodded to them, and seemed about to question their presence considering she must have just come from speaking briefly with her son closer to the front, but thought better of it. "Well, we're gonna go to our table now. Have fun!" she took her greasy date by his arm and pulled him away. I turned back in Gustavo's direction, expecting to see a clear path between us as before but was instead thrust into the personal space of Shaun Hawk.

"Good evening Kelly." He smiled a cruel, suave smile.

"Oh no. No. No. No. No. Back the Hell up Hawk! I don't have time for your plottin' ass tonight!"

"Normally I wouldn't have time for you either, but I think you'll agree to give me some of yours once you hear what I want to talk to you about… Come now, let's take this outside."

**Hawk's POV**

Rebecca and I had planned on winding down for a couple of hours at the Chocolate Warehouse after a long, stressful day of crushing dreams and taking names, but when I saw my arch nemesis Gustavo Rocque stuffing his face and drowning his sorrows in syrupy succor across the dining room, I couldn't resist antagonizing him just a little bit. So I excused myself from my assistant-with-benefits and swaggered over to him, taking the free seat opposite the talentless troll.

"Well, well, well… Gustavo, my friend, you don't look so good."

"Hey Hawk. I bet I look like Hell. You look alright, though."

_That's strange. Where's the venomous retort? _"So how are things going with your new band? Are you enjoying the prolongation of their inevitable failure?"

"Not really."

I wasn't sure what to say to that. Normally Gustavo was as hard as a Rocque and even more immovable. I had never seen him act the way he was just then. He almost seemed… broken. Aimless. Unsure. _The perfect moment for me to swoop in for the kill._

"Why don't you sign them over to me then? It'll save you a lot of time and trouble. Besides, I'll actually be able to make something out of them. You at least owe them that much. Maybe you can take an extended leave of absence and consider following a different path when you come back. Hey! You could try assembling a girl band. It almost worked for Diddy."

For a moment, as Gustavo stared at me with a blank expression (all the more so to mask the fury of the thoughts that were buzzing around in his head), I thought he was going to say yes. After that moment, slowly but surely, he began to shake his head.

"I can't believe you thought I would give it up that easily. I would die _**today**_ before I let you take away what I've worked my whole life to get. Those boys have the ultimate chance. They can go all the way! They can reach the top and it's my duty to get them there. Not with money and cunning and ruthlessness, those traits which simultaneously build up and destroy everything you touch, but with _heart _and _honesty _and _making music that tells people their dreams can come true!_ What else is music for but to free normal people from their hopeless lives and make them feel free and powerful and special, even if it only lasts three minutes? That's the whole reason I wanted to make music, Hawk. I wanted to pull people up out of their personal Hells and give them something to unite under. People will unite under Big Time Rush in the church of music, worshipping the Gods of happiness and love and dreams that never die. That's my job and I'll never give up. Write a million checks, Hawk, and I'll tear them up one by one. Now get the fuck out of my face."

**Carlos' POV**

Who would've thought that the best day of my life would be one where I said goodbye to two stiff dead bodies that used to belong to people I cared about and found a third one comatose on the steps of the recording studio? That's a rhetorical question; anyone who predicted that would either be a super awesome psychic or totally bonkers. But for the day itself, excluding the crazy ass morning and night, I was in a state of total orgasmic splendor. The perfect weather, the perfect guy and the perfectly aged bottle of wine, all just what I needed to get over the drama and tragedy that was hanging darkly all around us like poisonous spiders plotting their lethal strikes and spinning their sticky webs. Even though I could never count on Logan to squash any spiders when I was around (yeah, in case you didn't guess I'm the top in the relationship), I knew he'd always be on the sidelines cheering me on like he was watching Rocky fight at Madison Square Garden. He loosened up a lot as the day went on, but he still had his reservations. Reservations which, however clear at any given moment, were impossible for him to put a point on and beyond impossible for him to say aloud, especially when we were having so much fun.

After spending most of the morning on the ridge, we left the winery and I took Logie out to a secret beach that I'd never shown to anyone else before. Like most days, there was no one there and we sat up against a jagged rock all covered in barnacles with our feet in the water, our thighs in the sea foam and our bums in the soft sand. I could tell he was impressed with the treatment he was getting on what would be known as our first date (though it was neither short nor formal enough to be rightfully considered a date). We talked about everything and I was amazed at the new side of Logan that came out. Most people don't even know what it's like to know someone as well as I knew Logan when we were best friends. I thought I knew everything about him. But there was a squishy, undefined inner core to him that had a tight door sealing it away in darkness. The key to let me in to see what that true center of my friend was like was one that I only had half of. I learned a new way to connect with another human soul: you summon up all of your most honest (and yes, most pathetic) emotions and dreams and they still only make half a key. That's when the other person does the exact same thing and you discover that the two halves fit perfectly together. Not only that, but you soon discover that that new key can unlock both of your most secret inner places where the truth of yourself lies hidden. For most people, it's a person that they've never known was in them. Only through giving all that we can to someone else do we find out who we really are. When the two squishy albino cave thingies see each other through the darkness that they've never left before, they latch onto each other and bond unbreakably like two pieces of Play-Doh that you knead together; they're never really the same color or texture after that, are they?

That's the new world that Logan and I were living in when he said we should have dinner at the Chocolate Warehouse before we went home to all the depressing talk of crime scenes and album release dates. I, eager to spend every waking minute that I could kneading our squishy souls together until the day I stopped breathing, said I'd love to. _And I love you too, Mr. Mitchell._ But I had kissed him first so I promised myself that he would be the first one to lay down his L word.

**Citrine's POV**

I knocked on James' bedroom door about twenty minutes after Kendall and Mercedes had left. I had been sitting in the silence of the 2J living room groping at the details of my vision, begging myself to find just one more thing to be sure of so that I could call my beautiful brother and warn him more specifically. I was tugging at my velvety locks, obsessing over that one instant of knowledge which had been followed by so much confusion. But like trying to catch a mud puppy in a puddle, the images from the future only got wrigglier and more ornery as my efforts continued. Eventually, the authentic memory of it had departed and I was still left no better than when I started. I only knew that I would be told someone was dead before the morning came. I didn't allow myself to entertain the notion of that person being Kendall.

"I would die. That would kill me. I— I lo—" _wait, what? Were you about to say that you love him?_ "Yes, yes I do. I know I've only known him for twenty-four hours, but I love Kendall Knight more than anyone else that I've ever known or heard or thought of ever." It felt so good to let it out. "I want to stand with him on a mountain. I want to bathe with him in the sea! God, that song is gay. But people in love act gay most of the time. People who make of fun of that are just jealous. Oh, it's so exciting that I'm finally in love! I always wondered what it would be like! It's the most amazing feeling of all! It makes me want to jump my brother's bones! It makes me want to sip champagne on the Eiffel Tower with him! It makes me want to be his naughty schoolgirl and his sultry secretary and his hot biker chick all at once! KENDALL KNIGHT, HEAR ME THOUGH YE BE TRAPPED IN THE TALONS OF THAT SINISTER HARPY NAMED GRIFFIN! Je t'aimerai à jamais. Je t'attendrai jusqu'à la fin du temps. J'appartiens à toi! Je ne veux rien d'autre!" _Wait, was that French? But I don't know French. Did Katie know French? If I can access her knowledge by using her brain, I wonder what else of hers I could access if I tried…?_

By that time my inane ramblings had gone beyond a harsh whisper and reached the level of an intense conversation. Coming out of my trance and realizing in mortification that James had probably heard me, I approached his door and knocked timidly. "James? Are you awake?" No answer. I turned the knob and opened the door a crack. James was lying on his bed with his ear buds in listening to his iPod with his back turned to me. I walked over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. He looked at me, gave a warm smile and took one of the buds out of his ear.

"Hey Katie, what's up?"

"I guess I just wanted to see how you were doing. You kinda bolted when Dr. Hollywood showed up." I understood why, of course; it was as transparent as could be. I had seen this boy in bed with my mother. Now that same woman was out on a date with a cheese ball like Dr. Hollywood. It had to sting. But I couldn't let on that I understood. Playing dumb, in fact, was something I realized that I would have to do a lot if I was going to convincingly play the part of an eight-year-old girl. It would take a lot of self-censorship.

"Yeah I know. I didn't mean to leave you alone. I just can't really stand that guy."

"I get it. I don't like him either. Hey, Mama K said we could order a pizza. What do you say to…" I searched my mind for what I thought James would want on his pizza, and the answer came to me like a flash of lightning in a way that I didn't understand. "…Philly cheese steak with jalapenos and mushrooms?"

The boy stared at me like I was an alien robot dinosaur. "Dude… that's exactly what I wanted. That's my favorite kind of pizza but I never ask anyone to share it with me 'cause I know it's weird. How did you…?"

"Who knows? I just have a good feel for things today. One large Philly it is." I walked to the door, then turned back around and saw that James was about to say something. "And a two-liter of Diet Mountain Dew, right?" James' eyes widened and he just nodded, awestruck. I closed the door behind me and giggled at the show I'd put on. After everything else I'd proven myself capable of that day, reading James' mind wasn't the most spectacular. Still, I was pleased. I ordered the pizza and sat back down on the couch. I was about to turn on the TV when my thoughts turned back to my beau. As he was headed out the door with Mercedes on his arm just a little while earlier (looking like the finest thing to ever walk the Earth, of course), I had told him one last time to be careful and come home if he thought he was in any danger. Seeming touched by my concern, he had kissed me on my forehead and told me that he promised he would come back in one piece and spend the rest of the night with me until I felt better. Thinking back to our faces being that close, my heart was aflutter and I felt all melty and gooey under my skin. _No way it could be Kendall that I saw dying. With all the generosity that God has shown me today, He would be a fool and a hypocrite to break my heart in the same stroke._

**Kelly's POV**

"Okay Hawk, let's get this over with. What do you have to say?" we were standing a few feet down the sidewalk from the entrance to the Chocolate Warehouse, where there weren't enough people for us to be easily heard.

"Gustavo's hard shell is cracked. I know your big deadline and he's not going to make it there in one mental piece, trust me. He's headed for a fall and that means that you are too. He's going to break down and leave you hanging. Now I can tell you're a smart, strong woman Ms. Wainwright and I have a feeling that you're not one to leave your fate in another's hands. What you and the boys need is some insurance. You need to know that you'll make it with or without Gustavo. I can give you that security."

His offer seemed sincere. I was more than a little intrigued. "And how do you plan to do that?"

"A simple deal between you and me. More of a wager, really. You continue on to October 11th with Big Time Rush under Gustavo's direction, and if all goes well and you meet Griffin's expectation for number of albums sold, he signs the band for a second album. Everyone lives happily ever after. But… if you were to fail in any way to satisfy Griffin's hunger for success and he were to drop your band, or if something were to happen to Gustavo that would leave you without a producer, you would be instantly signed with Hawk Records for your second album and work would begin immediately."

"You're really that sure that Gustavo is going to fail us?"

"Surer than sherbet, honey. Believe me, it's all downhill from here for him."

I couldn't lie to myself; it was an incredibly tempting offer. To tell the truth, though Gustavo had always hated Hawk (and for good reason), I had always secretly liked him. He had a devious nature that drew people in and he was much sharper around the edges than Gustavo, whose blade had been obviously dulled by decades of slashing his way through the brush of the music industry with little success. I remembered what Kendall had said to me that morning in the break room. _I'm going to find a way to help you, Gustavo be damned. There's a road to take without Gustavo standing in the middle of it._ This was the road and I had a chance to help myself. I had a chance to live life without the constant fear of being beaten up by my boss. I imagined that life with me, diploma in hand, making a name for myself as Hawk's administrative assistant (outcompeting Rebecca of course) while still getting to stay with the boys blessed with the voices of angels who I honestly adored. It sounded damn good. I was about to respond to Hawk's offer when a scream sliced through the walls of the restaurant from the inside and soared out into the night air. Hawk and I ran back inside to see what had happened. I heard the same terrified woman scream again.

"Help! Someone call an ambulance! Oh my God, I think he's dead!"


	16. Chapter 16

"I never thought it would end like this."

"Who would do something like that?"

"What are we going to do without him?"

"I can't help but think we're all somewhat responsible… but one of us finished him for real and we need to find out who did it. He didn't deserve to die tonight. With all he's done for us, the only way we have left to repay him is by bringing his murderer to justice."

**Gustavo's POV**

Hawk didn't say a thing once I was done telling him off. He never dropped his poker face in my presence and simply shook his head before leaving me with the final remnants of my brownie monstrosity. I'd never felt so exhausted as I did once I was left alone to my thoughts again as that night began to wane at the Chocolate Warehouse. I forced myself to finish what was on my plate, but uneasiness settled over me with every unwanted bite. An implacable dread slipped itself over my shoulders like a frosty shawl. My heart felt terribly cold, and that coldness spread to my stomach and then to my spine and soon my whole body was mostly numb. My breathing became labored and I realized that I was more scared of what was happening to me than I'd ever been in my life. My heart felt like it was starting to swell up big and push its way out of my chest. The pain was nearly unbearable and I expected at any moment to see my heart burst out of me and land on my sticky plate. Spots of my vision started to go black and I felt myself falling far down, accompanied by an overwhelming sensation of resignation and failure. I remember the sound of my head hitting the table with tactless clamor.

**Logan's POV**

I heard Gustavo's head hit his table from across the room but I didn't think anything of it at the time. I was spacing out and Carlos was under the delusion that we were having a conversation.

"Logie? What'll it be?" he raised his eyebrows and grinned at me suggestively.

"Huh? What's the question?"

"Kill, marry or screw: Marcos, Dak Zevon and… let's see, I was gonna say Dr. Hollywood but I know you'd just kill him so how about my dad?" I made an appalled face that made Carlos burst into laughter and start choking on his tortellini.

"You're sick and nasty, y'know that?"

"Sure, but you still gotta answer the question."

"I know. Let me think… I suppose I'd just have to kill Marcos because it would be to everyone's benefit, including his own. I would marry your dad, but I don't think I could handle being married to a police officer and always having to worry about whether he was coming home in a body bag. Definitely not something I want to take on."

"Oh nice. So you're just gonna floss him and toss him."

"I wouldn't say it like that, but yeah. Everyone's got a little cop fetish, anyway. It would be fun."

"But being married to Dak would suck. He's so shallow and being next to him would always make you look ugly."

"Thanks a lot Carlos!"

"Hey! You should consider it a compliment that I love you for your brains and not just your looks."

**Carlos' POV**

_Shit. So much for him being the first one to say it. I knew it would slip out eventually, but I kinda thought I could hold out longer than this. Is he going to say something? He looks scared. Oh my God, he's going to run away now._

"Help! Someone call an ambulance! Oh my God, I think he's dead!"

Logan shot up out of his chair and ran away from me. Not because of what I'd said, but because Gustavo was dying. I shook the shock off and followed him to our producer's side. His waitress was standing next to him having a panic attack and there was red wine and glass all over the floor where she'd dropped a bottle upon her discovery. The concerned couple at the adjacent table had already called 911. Logan, ever the aspiring medic, checked the unconscious man's pulse.

"He's not dead yet."

Kelly and Hawk came upon us within seconds, then came Mrs. Knight and Dr. Hollywood and finally Kendall and Mercedes. They all wanted to know the same thing: what happened? Kelly sat down in an empty chair and stared at him intensely. By the time his ride to the hospital arrived, she was sobbing. Most of us wanted to go with him, but not wanting to hinder the paramedics in their efforts to keep him alive (and with their lack of room to hold us all), we got to the hospital by our own devices. Logan was too upset to talk and I told our loyal cabby where we were headed. Soon, there wasn't a doubt left in my mind that if my new (and unofficial) boyfriend had heard my foolish mention of love, he hadn't had time to process it before seeing the waitress scream and drop the wine. _So I've used my "get out of love free" card. I need to have a tighter tongue from now on._

**Kendall's POV**

Mercedes asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital with the others to support Gustavo and I, of course, said yes. Despite her indignation and dejection over our spoiled date, she understood and said she was willing to take a rain check. Then she said she was going home to paint her nails and hopped in her limo without a second glance at the man being taken away on a stretcher. My mother, having had a similar exchange with Dr. Hollywood, commiserated with me and Kelly agreed to take us in her car. Hawk disappeared stealthily, and when I looked around for him as we left I didn't see him at all. When we got to the hospital, naturally we were told that since Gustavo was just brought in we should just wait and some new information would be given to us soon. My mom and I were trying to console Kelly, who was becoming more of a mess every second, when I recognized Detective Simms entering the waiting room. She asked the receptionist something and started to leave so I went after her.

"Detective Simms! Wait up!" she turned around and it took her a moment to show that she knew who I was.

"Kendall Knight, right?"

"Yeah. What are you doing here?"

"Following up on the lead you gave me, of course. Aren't you here to visit Citrine too?"

"No, something happened to our record producer while we were all eating at a restaurant and now his life is in jeopardy and we're just stuck here waiting for news."

"God, that's terrible. Y'all are just a bunch of jinxes, aren't you? Well, good luck with that, not that it seems you have any." She turned and started to leave again.

"Wait, can I come with you?"

"You're welcome to kid, but at your own peril. Her parents are in there with her right now and I hear they are quite a couple of characters. You know how stuck up in their traditions those old Chinese people can get, and from what I've heard about Ms. Hu today, she was nothing if not untraditional."

**Citrine's POV**

It's an invigorating feeling to be known by a stranger. James was as comfortable as could be sitting next to me on the couch in 2J sharing his weird pizza and watching Nickelodeon, while I was struck anew by every mannerism and tendency that he displayed. It was my secret joy, and the only other person that was privy to the inconceivably strange nature of things was dead, along with my loathsome body. I was so drunk on the love of my new family that the true gravity of what I had done wouldn't hit me until a later time. At that time it still seemed like the perfect crime.

"I love it when she calls Freddie a nub." James laughed. I had to repress the urge to ask if we could change the channel again (it was torturing me to know that Law and Order: SVU was on and we were watching kids shows), seeing as, being a nearly tweenage girl, I was supposed to be enjoying myself. Not having much of an appetite, I looked for an excuse to leave him so I could go doodle my older brother's name in my proverbial notebook. I noticed that James was drinking his Mountain Dew in its lukewarm state and decided to be nice.

"Would you like some ice for that?" I pointed to his cup.

"Why yes, that would be awesome!"

"Okay!" I chirped and grabbed the cup, heading for the kitchen.

"Katie, wait. What are you up to?" he asked and I saw suspicion arrive to him from over the bar as I reached inside the freezer for some ice cubes.

"What? I'm just up to making sure your drink is cold so that you have maximum satisfaction, y'know, 'cause when the pizza is spicy it's nice to have that contrast in flavor and temperature in whatever you're drinking…" feeling no ice, I stood on my tiptoes and peered into the freezer to see what my fingers were missing. It was empty except for a couple of forgotten ice cream cartons in the back which were totally consumed in frost. "…we don't keep this place very well stocked at all, do we?"

"Why are you being so nice and calm? You're supposed to complain and say mean things about my hair."

_Jeez, I wasn't aware that I'd taken on the body of a whiney little brat. Katie was always so nice to me. But come to think of it, these boys are likely to get on my nerves after a while._ "Don't try to fight it James. Just accept it and enjoy it while it lasts. So is there an ice machine around here?"

"Well yeah, there's one down at the end of the hall but you don't need to go all that way just to get some ice for me! I was drinking fine without it…"

I patted him on the shoulder as I went by on my way to the door. "Ne t'inquiète pas, mon cher. I wanna do it. I'll be back before the commercial's over."

**Kelly's POV**

The last time that my boss had looked me in the eye, his hand had been raised to strike me. So why did I feel so guilty that he was the one on the verge of death? On a certain level, I hadn't ever really held it against Gustavo for taking his anger out on me every once in a while. I could never hate him after he saved my life the way he did. I knew it took a lot of patience to hold our whole family together the way he had, and I knew as well that I was too argumentative most of the time, an attribute that he could never beat out of me no matter how many years I worked for him (there's just no easy way to tell a girl from the ghetto that she ain't right). I knew, most dreadfully of all, that it was the revelation of my and Percy's latent relationship which had sent Gustavo over the edge into an inescapable sinkhole of fate.

"He's suffered a major heart attack." I heard the doctor say, and came out of my grief-stricken trance to pay attention for the first time since we'd been in the hospital. Mrs. Knight was holding my hand and that made me want to give her a big, teary hug.

"What do you think brought it on?" she asked him.

"We can't be sure right now—"

"No, I know what brought it on and I'm sure." I spoke up, frightened by the instability of my own voice. "Gustavo and Freight Train and I, we had a fight. Then he went all around town eating anything and everything he could get his hands on, hoping the pain would get pushed down his throat with every bite. It's not the first time he's done it. If only I'd been able to find him sooner and talk to him, I could have stopped him from binging before he choked his big poor heart with fat…!" I started to sob and Mrs. Knight patted me on the back sympathetically. Next thing I knew, she was trying to whisper something in my ear, but I was too inconsolable to be bothered by it. Then she was gone, and that too was just the same to me as I curled up into a ball and swam the warm, murky waters of desolation.

**Visitors' Roster**

**Kristen Knight**

I entered Gustavo's room and saw him in a light in which he had never before been cast to my knowledge: he was resigned. He was permitting of all things and quite unparticular, though even as he lay unconscious his face retained a defiant twist which had simply been carved with too much force into it for any other look to hang about it. I hadn't a doubt in my mind that Gustavo's defiance would stay on his face until his flesh was completely returned to the earth, a time which I sensed may be drawing closer with every ambivalent beat of his feeble heart. I wasn't sure what I wanted to say, or even that I had any reason to be visiting the record producer's deathbed at all. The silence of death hanging in the air was about to consume me when the voice of an even less desired visitor pierced it and made me jump about ten feet out of my skin.

"He knows everything, Kristy. You must realize that. He saw you and James together in your car at that intersection. It couldn't have been more obvious."

"Why are you here? Can't you leave us both in peace?"

"I promised you on the day we got married that you'd never be unhappy as long as I was around. Now that I can't be around anymore—"

"Now that you're dead you have to make _sure_ I'm unhappy every day of my too-long lonely life!"

"No… that's not what I was going to say at all…"

"I don't want to hear you tell me all this crazy shit like you always do! It messes with my head! I have to be strong for Kendall and Kelly and Katie and… goddammit why does everyone I know have a name that starts with a K!"

"I know you don't want to hear it Kristy, and that's why I have to be here to force it into that pretty little head of yours! I like the color of your hair, by the way. But I liked it better before. What, did you think I wouldn't recognize you and I'd have to leave you alone? Ahahaha!" he laughed a hoarse, cruel laugh that played every bit the part of one from beyond the grave. But that man couldn't scare me anymore. Not when I'd fixed his dinner and folded his towels for fourteen years. There ain't nothing left to be afraid of in a man once you dig down deep and see just how stupid and pathetic they really are. Hell, he could strap a couple of big bull horns on his head and make his eyes shoot fire and I'd still walk right up to him and knee him in the balls like he deserves for not staying dead.

"You don't look so bad yourself, Kyle. Why, you don't look a day over _dead._"

"That's 'cause I ain't. I'll always look exactly the same as the last day you saw me."

"Don't think I've forgotten. You were in a bed just like this one and I was drinking myself to death out of a thermos that everyone thought was full of green tea. Shit! Who drinks green tea when their husband is hanging headfirst over the abyss? I was about ready to marry Jack Daniels as soon as you croaked."

"But you didn't. You held your chin up and planned my funeral because that's what the kids needed you to do. Now it's time you protect them again."

"I see, and what do you suggest I do?"

"If Gustavo wakes up, who's to say what he'll do? If what Kelly said is true, he's in here because he reached his emotional breaking point. So loose screws make for loose lips. Who's to say that he won't tell anyone he wants about your ridiculous one-night-stand? We can't have that."

"But there ain't nothing we can do about it, neither. He's gonna hold onto that secret until he wakes up, and we just gotta hope we're around to shut him up when he does."

"There sure as Hell is something you can do about it. Take the reins of your own life while it's still yours and not some twisted memory stuck in your wife's head. Grab that plug in the wall and pull it out. These machines will all turn off and Gustavo will fade away like he was naturally meant to. I won't hold it against you."

My eyes fell on the big plastic head with its teeth dug deep into the electrical socket. _Can killing this mean old ogre really be this easy? Course I'd have to make a run for it if I did. _I stepped over a few wires to bend down to the plug and wrap my slender fingers around it. I looked over my shoulder at where Kyle used to be. He had left. I looked back down at what I was holding. _I'll be damned if it ain't awful tempting…_

**Freight Train's POV**

I didn't want to come to the hospital that night, but Kelly had texted me telling me what happened to Gustavo and I couldn't stand sitting alone when I knew how badly she must have been breaking. So I got myself together and held it together with mental duct tape like a person does when there's no time to feel what they want to feel and I went to comfort her. I found her alone in the waiting room all curled up in the fetal position and not making a sound. I touched her arm gently and a little snore came from within the human bundle. _She must've cried herself out and nodded off._ I went over to the sign-in sheet on the reception desk.

**Visitors' Roster**

**Kristen Knight**

**Shaun Hawk**

I knocked briefly before entering the room where my archenemy lay helpless and more like a vegetable than anything he'd ever cared to eat.

"Quite a performance, old friend. I knew I sensed you weakening. I tried to tell you over and over again that you'd get your comeuppance for all those times you ordered the bacon cheeseburger when I got the garden salad. Then again, what kind of nemesis would I have been to stop you?" I went to his side and was about to say something even more smug when I noticed the plug in the wall. "Is this your power cord? Hmm. They don't do much to keep me from ripping it out, do they?"

My motive was clear enough: the deal I'd made with Kelly put me in the perfect place to arrange Gustavo's death. I remembered what I'd said to her. _If something were to happen to Gustavo that would leave you without a producer, you will be instantly signed with Hawk Records for your second album and work will begin immediately. _What reason did I have not to do it? Pity? Human decency? Please. I'm no human. I'm a predator. I live by the law of the jungle. And in the jungle, when your adversary is down on his knees and your teeth are secured around his neck, you don't listen to his whimpers. You bite down. My muscle was tensed to pull when I heard a slight jingle behind me. I stood straight up and looked at the privacy curtain beside me. One of the rings was swinging in the littlest way on the rod. I tore the curtain away and saw Mrs. Knight silently attempting to squeeze herself under the other bed.

"Mrs. Knight? How long have you been in here?"

"Oh hey Hawk, I wasn't hiding or anything. I was just, uh—looking for my earring. It fell under the bed."

I was about to point out that both of her earrings were on her head when I heard the doorknob start to turn behind us. "Someone's coming! Make room for me under there!"

**Visitors' Roster**

**Kristen Knight**

**Shaun Hawk**

**Percy Ironwood**

I didn't feel anything when I saw Gustavo lying, when I saw Gustavo dying. It was all I could do to repress my lividness at any given moment since he'd thrown me through a window.

"Maybe Kelly's right, boss. Maybe you do have a good heart. But it's not a strong heart, obviously. You're too young to have a heart attack. You brought this upon yourself 100%. If you do have a good heart, you sure have a _funny _way of showing it! How could she say that when you've been beating her up for God knows how long? That you would even think to lay hands on a woman like her… you bastard…" I stepped closer to him and let the door close behind me. Despite my size and strength, I still had the irrational fear that he would wake up and we would fight again. There's something terrifying about anyone closer to death than you are. It's like the universe is on their side.

"I remember when we first met I thought you were just another white boy trying to be a thug and an asshole like the rest of us, and I was mostly right. But when you started to help me, I saw the lighter side of you. I saw the side of you that reflects the way you were really raised, in the middle class suburbs where GED and food stamps aren't in the vernacular. But honestly, where would Kelly and I be today if you hadn't rebelled and decided to follow art instead of business to start your own record label?"

I looked around him at all the tubes and wires that the doctors were using to keep him alive. His heart had failed. He was ready to die. Something about it seemed wrong. I thought about Kendall and James, Carlos and Logan, and Kelly of course. They could all move on if he was gone. The only thing he had ever really been that good at was taking up space. And now he was taking up space in a hospital bed while the rest of us waited for a recovery that might not happen. I saw the plug sticking out of the wall, the one that the doctors on TV always talk about pulling to end the life of a comatose patient. _You deserve it for what you did to her. You deserve for me to kill you quickly and quietly right here. You'd never know it was me, but I'd have the satisfaction of knowing that I took away all my lady's troubles in one little tug…_

**Kendall's POV**

I didn't know what Det. Simms meant by Citrine being "untraditional," but I didn't have time to ask as we were already entering the waitress' room by the time I caught up with her again. I saw an old, wrinkly Asian couple with very firmly set scowls on their faces seated beside Citrine's bed. They stood up when we came in and bowed slightly, then the old woman asked who we were.

"I'm Detective Gina Simms from the LAPD and this is Kendall Knight. He found your daughter outside of the recording company where he works and rode with her to the hospital. He wanted to see how she was doing. As for me, I'd like to ask you two a few questions if you don't mind."

"I'm Jane and this is my husband, Rudy. This pathetic lump of flesh in the bed is our son, Walter, and I insist that you refer to him as such despite the incessant delusions he's cooked up for attention these last couple of years."

I was dumbstruck. I couldn't believe what Citrine's mother was saying. I looked to Det. Simms in confusion and she nodded. "Yes, Kendall, it turns out that our friend Citrine is biologically male. Didn't she like to go by Wally?" she asked her parents.

"His grandfather used to call him that. He took an affinity to it but we like the name that _we_ gave him." At Mrs. Hu's saying this, her husband nodded solemnly, took a cigarette out of his pocket and put it in his mouth.

"Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Hu but you can't smoke in here." Det. Simms told him. He narrowed his eyes at her and silently left the room to light up outside. I went to stand beside Citrine and looked down on her. She looked much healthier than when I'd found her, but she also seemed completely distant, as if her soul was never to return and resume its past life. I took her hand in mine and tried to hold back my tears. _I knew there was something different about you. The pain that I saw in your eyes was undeniable. You're a wonderful person, Citrine, and I'd love for you to come back to us… but if your body was a cell to you and you're finally free to be yourself, I'm content to say goodbye. If Heaven is full of people like you, I'm eager to go there myself._

"Can you think of any reason that Wally might have ended up at the Palm Woods hotel last night, or of any connection he might have had to a man named Reginald Bitters?" the detective asked Mrs. Hu.

"I think you may be putting too fine a point on connections here, Ms. Simms. There's something you may not understand about my broken she-male son here. He was a waif, a vagabond, a streetwalker. He ran away to live on the street. He slept on the street, he ate on the street, and when there wasn't enough of a bounty to be had from dumpster diving, he did whatever he had to for money, morals be damned. He got into random men's cars and took their cash to do unspeakable things. He would come home to his alley beaten to a pulp and bleeding from the inside and after a shower in a gutter and good night's sleep with a garbage bag as a pillow he'd be at it again. All because he thought we didn't love him enough! Of course we didn't believe his insane ramblings about being a woman 'on the inside' but we loved him well enough! That's made perfectly obvious by the fact that we gave him a job at our restaurant and plenty of food when he came limping back with his tail (and his tallywacker) tucked between his legs after a few hard months in the urban wilderness. Who am I to say that he stopped whoring around just because he didn't need to? Maybe he liked it. Maybe he used the extra money for liquor and drugs. I find it as plausible as anything else that Walter was out last night walking the streets in his stripper heels when Mr. Bitters pulled up looking for a good time. He took my son back to his hotel, had his way with him and, finding himself broke, decided he'd just kill him and pretend it never happened. How often do you hear of prostitutes being killed on the news? The way I see it, he was asking for what he got. Anyone who goes out dressed the way he did deserves exactly what they get. Creepy old men like Bitters are everywhere."

I stood up to face the hateful old woman, ready to spit venom, but was somewhat discouraged to find her standing two feet shorter than me. I didn't have enough malice in my heart to tell off a hurting mother whose daughter was almost dead, no matter how ignorant her words had been. I just bowed politely and said over my shoulder before I left: "You've raised a young woman with a beautiful soul, Mrs. Hu, though I can't imagine how. She'll be in my family's prayers tonight."

I was feeling as forlorn as ever as I walked back down the hall to the waiting room alone, where I found just Kelly sleeping with her legs up in her chair. Carlos and Logan still hadn't arrived. I sat beside her and she roused suddenly, looking sleepily all around before resting her eyes on me.

"Kendall? Where's your mom? How is Gustavo doing? How long have I been asleep?"

"Relax. I was gone less than ten minutes. You can probably go in to visit him now, if you want." She nodded slowly and let her legs down, wobbled a little when she stood up, but adopted a stable demeanor as she went away to see our boss. "Kelly? You'd better sign in." I said and she stared blankly at me before acknowledging what I'd said and coming back to the sign the sheet before leaving.

**Visitors' Roster**

**Kristen Knight**

**Shaun Hawk**

**Percy Ironwood**

**Kelly Wainwright**

My heart skipped a beat when I saw Percy's name on the list. I hurried to Gustavo's room, hoping against hope to find my old lover there so that we could console each other while we gave our friend strength. What I saw when I opened the door was an image that would never leave me. I was entering a defining moment of my life. I imagine that when my time comes and my life does flash before my eyes, I'll see what I saw then quite clearly: Gustavo Rocque, dead and motionless, all the machines around him dark and silent, a little off-white cord lying disconnected from the wall on the floor. Next to it, a little stud earring shimmered in the fluorescent light.


	17. Chapter 17

**Camille's POV**

_If I die young, bury me in satin._

_Lay me down on a bed of roses._

_Take me to the river at dawn._

_Send me away with the words of a love song._

I sang along and suddenly tears came to my eyes.

"That girl… Kendall said her name was Citrine. She was barely older than me. Bitters almost killed her. That could've been me on the tarp. It could've been Jo. Oh, God…"

_And I'll be wearing white when I come into your kingdom._

_I'm as green as the ring on my little cold finger._

_I've never known the loving of a man, but it sure felt nice when he was holding my hand!_

I could no longer hear the music over my own sobbing and sniffling. I turned off the radio and knocked on my wall to get Jo's attention. No answer. I figured she was doing her homework. I lay back on my bed and let the tears roll out.

"I never thought you'd really do it, Bitters. Everyone knew you were capable of anything, but this? If there's a Hell you're on your way there… and I'm sure you'll work your way to being a slumlord in the worst neighborhood before long. I suppose there's a place for everyone in this world, and a place for everyone above and below it too… it's our decisions that decide which ones are ours and whether we fill them. Oh Citrine, I'm so sorry! If only I hadn't been spending the most wonderful night of my life with the most beautiful girl in the world, I promise I would've heard your cries and done something to save you…"

Before long my tears stopped coming and the silence began to kill me. I'd been in my room all day. After I'd told my dad what we saw on the patio and the (almost) true story of it all, he wasn't sure what to do with me and told me to just stay at home and keep the doors locked. Sometime around four o'clock he'd left to get groceries without saying anything to me. I decided I couldn't be alone anymore and walked out of my room, then out of my apartment and into the hall. When I stood before the door to Jo's apartment, I saw that the door was slightly ajar.

"Jo?" I knocked on it. There was no light coming from the inside. The sun was gone but it wasn't dark yet and everything had an eerie diffuse blueness that just made you want to laugh as loud as you could to keep the demons of despair at bay. The silence and lifelessness were pure, almost purposefully so, as if they were being upheld by some wicked stage-setter. I pushed on the door lightly and it swung forward with a cautionary creaking like the growling of an animal when you enter its cage. The apartment was dark, for all intents and purposes, but the tiny amount of day left flowed like fog from the windows and covered everything, giving it the slightest dimensions and details but not really helping me to see at all. "Jo! Are you in here? Your door was open, so you must be… my dad left, and I guess your parents did too so I figured we could hang out on the down-low until they got back… I brought a couple of my karaoke CDs 'cause I thought maybe you'd be in the mood for that…" by this time I was in the middle of the living room, and I could see every corner of the apartment. No light in any of the hallways. I realized that I'd made a mistake and felt stupid for talking to myself. I turned to the door and made for it quickly out of embarrassment, but just as I reached it I heard a little noise. I stopped and listened. It was a muffled whimpering. I went toward Jo's room and decided that it was definitely the source.

The sound wasn't natural. It didn't sound like Jo crying into her pillow. It sounded like she was trying to say something but couldn't. "Jo…?" the door to her room was also just a little open, and as I took my last few, slow steps toward it with the floor creaking under me, adrenaline seized me and I began to tremble all over. I touched it with my fingertips and revealed the room effortlessly. Jo lay on the floor, flat and face-side-down, whimpering and mumbling furiously into the carpet. I could barely make out her hollow gold hair in the bars of light coming from under her closed blinds. I took two steps into the room. "Jo, what're you doing? Are you okay…?"

And that's when I knew. It dawned on me with all the clarity of death itself. I heard his breathing and I felt his thoughts molest me. The greatest fear of my life. The reason that I can't walk my dog at night to this day, and why I spend a fortune on that fancy home security system. His eyes gleamed like a panther's in the darkness, his heart sick and drunk with malice. I knew there was no hope of escape. A little prayer managed to escape my lips, however, before I was gagged and bound and thrown over his shoulder.

**Citrine's POV**

I whistled a content tune as I strode the short distance to the ice machine. Tucked under my petite arm, a modest Tupperware container. In my heart, all the love in the world that one can have. It was amazing how quickly my old life was melting away already. It reminded me of when I first started on hormones the year before. Right away, it was like my disease was cured. It was like my body had been torturing me with misery for all my life and the only thing it needed was a little estrogen to quench its thirst. I went a little crazy after that. I don't like to admit it, but my parents didn't kick me out just for being transgender. I was kind of a party girl for a little while, and I did some things I'm not proud of. I ended up blowing my money while fooling around and had to put my transition on hold until I got more funds. Well, once I was homeless there were no more funds. It was all downhill from there.

"But none of that matters anymore!" I cheered myself up by saying so and shook the dirty old thoughts from my head. "Citrine who? Ahaha!"

"You've done a bad, bad thing Citrine."

I froze. That voice, it stirred a humble shame in me. I stopped walking so I didn't go through him. Even at four feet's distance, he was making me shiver. I feared I would freeze for real if I touched his ethereal skin. I looked him in the eyes like a naughty kid with chocolate on her face.

"Bob, you're… you're still here."

"Are you surprised that I'm still on Earth or that I'm still in the Palm Woods? Either way, you shouldn't be. I wondered what my purpose for remaining tied to this life was, but now I see. It's not to stop Bitters, or to save any of his future victims. That's someone else's destiny. I'm being kept on Earth to stop you, Citrine. You're a body snatcher and a murderer!"

I didn't know how to respond. I felt such a vital justice in Bob's aura, one which had been just as strong when we had met while we were alive. People like him, they know what's right and they expect everyone to act accordingly. But what about extenuating circumstances? What about when justice for one person means injustice for another? What about when one person has everything while another has nothing? Wasn't Robin Hood considered a hero? What is justice when it merely stands to make sure that those who have it keep it and that those who don't never do? I wanted to feel bad for Katie. I really did. But I couldn't feel any worse for a person than how I would have felt for myself if I had lived the rest of my life in dirt-poor limbo. Perhaps Katie was in peace. If not, at least I was. Either way, one of us had to wither for the other to flourish, and better me than her. I didn't feel bad. I felt good. I had gotten away with it, and there wasn't a thing Buddha Bob could do about it.

"I understand that what I did was wrong, but there's no way to take it back and even if I could, I wouldn't. I played nice up until the minute that I switched those cords, and I'll play nice every day for the rest of my long, wonderful life. But I did one wrong thing, and I'm not going to hang myself over it."

"You'll get what's coming to you, Citrine. I thought you were so pure of heart when I heard you sing. I was enamored in every way. But there's a vicious vixen beneath your pretty smile, and foxes don't get nothin' in the end but a pack of hungry dogs at their throats and a musket's kiss. You'll get what's coming to you, my girl, just like Bitters will. I've put my ear to the heavenly wind and I've heard the whispers from what's to come. I've got a pretty good idea that you're in for no treat."

I pushed past the ghost and hurried to the end of the hall. He called out after me. "There's somethin' else you forgot, too, in your master plan."

I stopped. He seemed to think he knew everything. It was just too tempting; I had to bite. "And what was that?"

"If I'm dead and Katie's dead, and I'm standin' here hauntin' you, who's to say she won't be next in line? Now tell me hun, how long can you go livin' your utopian dream when you've got a poltergeist at each ear?" he winked in mocking me and disappeared. I shook my head and entered the alcove with the ice machine in it. I bumped right into a woman twice my height (and probably eight times my age) and dropped my plastic box. She didn't lift a finger to help me with it. Then again, she was considerably farther from the ground than I was and my retrieval was the energy-efficient way. I said I was sorry and she looked at me in an unpleasant and fearful manner and told me to shoo before I got hurt.

**Rose's POV**

"But why? I just came to get some ice." She pointed at the machine behind me. She had the most adorable little face and the biggest puppy dog eyes. I couldn't resist accommodating her.

"Okay, go ahead but hurry up!" I stepped back and let her get at the machine. She put her box under the chute and pressed a big black button and ice started falling into it. I started tapping my foot. It couldn't go fast enough. I knew that my brother would be coming back at any moment with a teenage girl over each shoulder and if this precious little thing saw us he'd probably tell me to kill her too. I knew I couldn't bear to be a part of that. I mean, that's why I'd agreed to come along with him to the Palm Woods that night in the first place; he'd promised that if it were possible by any means, he would refrain from killing Jo and Camille. He said that if we were lucky, we could shut them up before they told the police what he did. It was as simple as could be; they were the only witnesses. I knew as I drove my little brother back to the scene of his double homicide to abduct the two that'd gotten away under the setting sun that Saturday night that I really was capable of doing anything to protect him, and that scared the shit outta me. I'd already agreed to let him hide away with me in my apartment until things died down when he came to me with this ingenious plan. When we'd successfully gotten in through the backdoors and snuck up to the second floor, he told me that I just needed to stand by the stairs and watch the elevator. _When I come back with the girls, we'll make a run for it and you'll drive us back to your apartment while I keep them quiet in the backseat_, he'd said. So there I was, a helpless accomplice who didn't have the guts to tell that little girl that she was risking her life for a bucket of ice.

"Is it almost full?" I pleaded with her, barely masking the panic in my voice.

She shot me a dirty look and took her finger off the button. "Yeah, I've got enough. What're you so nervous about, anyway?"

"I'm waiting for someone. He doesn't like kids. I just don't want you to get your feelings hurt, that's all."

She smiled slightly. "Don't worry ma'am, it takes a lot more than a few harsh words to hurt me." She picked up her box and seemed surprised at how heavy it was, or more accurately at how difficult it was for her to pick it up and hold it. "Well, have a nice night." She was one more step from being out of the alcove when lumbering steps reached the bottom of the stairs beside us and my brother appeared on the other side, barely holding himself up, sweating all over, panting and struggling with two soft, wiggly bodies.

"Rosie, let's split!" he rasped before seeing the child. If only she hadn't turned around. If only she hadn't been so damn curious as to why Reggie sounded so hoarse. Or maybe it was because she recognized his voice, after all. But when those two stood eye-to-eye with me in the middle, it was incendiary. I could tell they knew each other, but something about it didn't seem right. They both seemed terrified.

"Bitters." She said with all the emotion of a widow at her husband's grave. The sound of the word didn't suit her young age or her little mouth.

"Katie, it's not what it—"

"I'm not Katie, you bastard!" she threw the box of ice on the ground and charged at him, standing directly before him and forcing him to look in her eyes. "It's me. Citrine. Do you remember, or should I remind you? You broke my leg with a hammer, tried to rape me and when you realized you didn't want what you'd already stolen you knocked me out and dumped my body, leaving me to die!" The air turned unbearably tense. I felt paralyzed and everything was vibrating. I could hear the ice inside the machine shaking and every old nut and bolt squeaked and creaked. My brother looked like he'd seen a ghost, and rightfully so. "So what's this? Are you gonna kill them too, like you killed me? Or are you going to rape them first? Well let me tell you Bitters, you'd better watch out how many girls you murder because there is a hereafter and an elsewhere! I'm after-living proof! Gahh!" she gasped as my brother (amazingly, considering he was supporting the weight of three bodies) kneed her in the face and she fell back flat on her butt, her nose bleeding buckets right away. She held it protectively with both hands and the blood trickled through the spaces between her fingers. He started to lope away in primal fear but stopped short of turning the corner to look at me and hiss a command.

"Don't just stand there! Finish her!" and then he was gone. I stood in still paralyzed awe of all that was happening. The girl was gushing tears of agony that mixed with her blood and soaked her chest. The ice machine was rattling harder and harder until then it seemed as if someone had their hands on it and was shaking it as hard as they could. I reached into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the thing that my brother had given me to defend myself with. I took out the butcher knife and looked at my reflection in it. What a disgusting thing it was, what an evil thing my brother was and what a pathetic thing I was for being a part of any of it. Had my destiny in life always been this, from the moment I was born? Did God always plan on me standing before a helpless girl with a broken nose beside a possessed ice machine with a huge knife poised in the air for a broad swing that would cut her neck and make her bleed out before a minute had passed? If so, my whole life had been a stupid waste of time and effort. I knew that Reggie was crazy, and that if I did it we would get caught eventually and I would end up living out my seniority in some nasty women's prison where I'd never find true love, even if I did pull off being a late-life lesbian. On a secret level, I'd always held out hope that I would get swept off my feet someday by the man of my dreams, that all my disillusionment would be cured and that I would live the rest of my days in ignorant bliss. But on the rational level, I knew no man could ever be strong enough to heal the scars on my heart, to clean up all those muddy footprints made by the truck drivers and the football players and the busboys that'd ruined me in every way a woman can be ruined and never bothered to say they were sorry. So here I ended up, going into my seventh decade of life still selfish, still unmotivated and unenthused, still cynical, still hateful, still old and even older, still no-good, still Rose Quartz Bitters and still as bitter as ever. Feeling the fear of being discovered hit me suddenly, I raised my knife a bit higher and prepared to strike. Wait, what was I thinking? No matter how little I'd done or how lazy I'd been, I was still a good person at the very core and I could never go along with this. There was still a chance for redemption, a chance for me to be something other than a waitress and a curmudgeon. I could help this little girl up off the floor, call 911 to bring an ambulance and tell them exactly where to find my brother downstairs so he could be taken to jail and pay for what he'd done. I was about to lower my knife when the girl opened her eyes.

She stared straight into me. She had a doe's eyes, so weak and afraid yet so indignant and judgmental that they can strike fear into the hunter in return. She saw the knife in my hand and seemed to take fright at first, but then I saw her swell up with anger. She narrowed her eyes sharply and the ice machine began to stagger back and forth on its heels like a rocking chair, slowly tugging out the screws that secured it to the linoleum floor. My jaw dropped as I realized that this was no earthquake, no coincidence but that little miss moppet was actually moving this thing, which must have weighed literally a ton, this big ice-making crate of metal and plastic with iron guts that was as tall as I was and many times wider, with her _mind._ I couldn't help but watch the thing totter as I stood before it, again with that feeling of paralysis which I realized she was probably creating as well. It reeled back and the two front screws rose out of their deep holes in the floor, then it slammed back on the ground and lurched forward slowly, looming over me, and I felt my muscles tighten but found I simply couldn't budge. It paused for a moment à la guillotine above the neck of its undeserving prey as the two hind screws popped out of their places. Then it tipped, for just one more agonizingly unsure moment, gathering its gumption for what it had to do just as I had standing above the little girl just seconds before. But this was a machine, not an old woman, and it had no mercy to give. I dropped the knife to the floor and closed my eyes as the falling giant made the plunge into my chest, pushing me down with breathtaking force and slamming me into the ground, crushing my ribs, my lungs and my heart all at once and leaving me no time for last words. But I remember my last thoughts. I sent them to my brother, who I could see hiding in the back of my car waiting for me, crouching atop his catches of the day. I cried out to him in lament, but he did not receive my message. Even still, it was said, and if even one spirit heard it then it was worth my final, untaken breath.

"Tell mama and papa I'm sorry I won't be joining y'all in heaven tonight… tell 'em I'm sorry, Darcy…!"

_A penny for my thoughts?_

_Oh no, I'll sell 'em for a dollar._

_They're worth so much more after I'm a goner._

_And maybe then you'll hear the words I been singin'._

_Funny when you're dead how people start listenin'._

**Logan's POV**

Fortune. It's the way that the world has of giving us everything we need and everything we don't want all at the same time. It's the reason that Buddha Bob was dead, the reason that Bitters was on the run, the reason Citrine was in a coma, the reason that that same poor girl was born into a male body while Katie was perfectly matched to hers, the reason that that other poor girl was trapped in a turbulent sea of blood and coffee, suffocating endlessly but never dying, the reason that Rose was killed by the woman who had been keeping her niece alive for months, the reason Gustavo had a cardiac infarction at the Chocolate Warehouse, the reason everyone had ended up in that restaurant on the same night without even planning to, and the reason that Carlos and I had suddenly decided to light the fireworks that had been piling up between us since the day we met in Minnesota on that one mysterious night at the Glory Panda. It's even the reason that we were stuck in traffic in the back of a taxi on the way to the hospital at the time that Kelly was discovering the scene of Gustavo's murder, and certainly the reason that the three suspects of said murder found themselves in quite a pickle at the hands of Det. Simms. It's the reason that Freight Train and Kelly found each other again thanks to the benevolence of a deeply misunderstood record producer, it's the reason that Kendall found her lying broken on the floor instead of someone else and the reason that her life would be in his hands again before long, and it's the reason that James' and Mrs. Knight's relationship, one which should never have begun, was only just beginning. None of these things could really be described as "fortunate," but fortune never stops working, fortune never sleeps, and fortune never stops plotting new twists of fate that somehow usually put us somewhere a little better than where we were in the beginning, in the end. Fortune's the reason for all the pain and all the joy that are ever experienced, the reason that some of us are homeless, the reason that some are poor and some are rich, some are black and some are white (and every pretty color in between), some are gay and some are straight, some are dead and some are still with us, and some seem to have all the luck while others get trampled into the dirt from the moment they wake up to the moment they rest their weary frames. Our fortune to some is the amount of money and possessions that we accumulate, but we also have a fortune in experiences. Our decisions times everyone else's divided by the number of things that can happen in one day is the equation that makes those experiences, and if you're lucky enough to live long enough to realize how, those experiences can be cashed in for wisdom and only through wisdom do we find peace. Peace is the only known cure for death, which is ultimately the only problem we ever face.

Some might call it fortune, some might call it providence, some might call it God and some might even call it chaos, but I couldn't help but think that there was something more than met the eye to what was happening to me and everyone I knew on that weekend at the end of August. Something magical and incomprehensible whispered in my ear as I was deeply lost in thought in the back of the taxi. It told me to look up, and just a few seconds later, out of the foggy window I saw the first few snowflakes fall from the dark, murky ocean of ether.

"Carlos, it's snowing! My God, this can't be real!" I rolled down the window and a blast of winter air entered the car. A snowflake landed on his arm and Carlos looked down at in in wonder.

"Logan… this is unreal… the world's gone crazy! Burr! Roll it back up!" Naturally, neither of us had brought jackets. When we left the Chocolate Warehouse, I could've sworn the temperature was in the upper sixties, but now…

"A cold front is one thing, but what could possibly make it snow in August? Not only that, but it's dropped thirty degrees in thirty minutes! It barely even snows here in the dead of winter!" I rambled as I rolled the window back up and started to shiver violently. Carlos put his arm around me and we shivered together. He smiled contentedly.

"You may not have the answers, Logie, but I feel a Hell of a lot better facing life's mysteries with you by my side. Lord knows, a smart and level head is something I could stand to develop." He brought his face closer to mine, crossing his eyes to look at my nose. "You've got a snowflake on your nose… here, I'll get it." He slid his tongue up my nose and we both giggled. "Yummy." I pulled his face into mine and planted a wet one on him.

"Yummier." I said, smiling wide and playing along with his cutesy lover's games. He sat back in the seat and I laid my head on his stomach, looking up at him. The word "fortune" came to my mind from out of nowhere. I reached into my pocket and felt something in there that I didn't remember being there before. I pulled it out and saw that it was my fortune from the cookie that I had gotten at the super buffet.

_It is time for your feelings towards old acquaintances to be reevaluated._

And the flip side…

_Lucky numbers: 3, 1, 18, 12, 15, 19, 7, 1, 18, 3, 9, 1_

I had never taken that little slip of paper out of my pocket from the night before. I was as sure that it should have still been resting in the pocket of my used cargo shorts at the top of my hamper as a person can be about anything, and yet there it was. It had ended up on my person, and not only that, but it had begged for me to view it again at that very moment. _There's something about these fortunes… _I thought, _we all noticed it as soon as we got them, but I can't decide exactly what it is. All I know is that before we opened those cookies, everything was normal, and after we opened them… well…_

I looked back up at Carlos. He was staring out the window as the snow came down in thick sheets. _Really, how sure of anything can a person be on a snowy August 29__th__ in L.A.?_ I shook my head at the ridiculousness of it all. _How did I allow myself to get here? If I wait too long like this, I could get trapped and start having feelings for Carlos that I don't want. Just because I __**can**__ fall in love with my best friend doesn't mean I __**should**__! God, he's just so intoxicating… I've let him suck me in and now I've even convinced myself that I want this when I don't really think I do!_ The closeness between us made me panic for a moment and I sat up, scooting over to the other side of the seat. Carlos looked hurt.

"What's wrong?" he asked fragilely.

That feeling that I'd gotten in the limo the night before suddenly came back. Like the urge to vomit when you have the stomach flu, it's sudden and overwhelming. Carlos had gotten inside of me and I needed the throw his love up, even if it meant gagging myself. The screaming voice was back and the tranquility of the weather seemed to mock my inner turmoil. I felt a burning contempt for the man I saw before me: his golden brown skin, his thick and luxurious hair, his perfectly toned body, his smile (which, when combined with his dimples, became an armor-piercing projectile sex weapon), and those all-powerful eyes that melt a girl and make her sizzle in his hands like butter in a skillet. I didn't want any of it. I felt dirty and cheap for even having thought that I did. I wanted to run away. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to read a 400-page dissertation about stem cell research, if that's what it would take to get my eyes off of my greatest temptation. Yet despite all of this, our producer was in the hospital and he would already be dead by the time we got there, so we would never get to say goodbye. Those were tough times and we needed each other. As friends. So, I said…

"Nothing." And we met at the middle of the seat again. I put my head on his arm and breathed in deeply even though I knew it was a bad idea. He smelled just like he had in my dream. That was the part where I was supposed to say "I love you." and he was supposed to say "I know, silly. Merry Christmas." Except we weren't in central park or on a carriage ride, we weren't married or on vacation, it wasn't Christmas or even winter and everything that was supposed to be right was very, very wrong.


	18. Chapter 18

**Mr. Bitters' POV**

"Where is she?" I asked the cold night. My voice spread its wings and flew across the parking lot, then up into the heavy orange-stained grey clouds but no one heard it. I threw the empty bottle in my hand out of the car and it shattered quietly on the pavement. "Too bad I had to use the good stuff so early on…" I lamented using the last of my chloroform on those stubborn girls just to be able to get them in the backseat without losing an eye. But now they were sleeping soundly together and it was a becalming sight. "Y'know, you two really do make a cute couple. Better that you tried to be together than to try taming those wild big time boys. They'll always be a hazard. I wish I could've done away with them instead of dear old Bob… but alas… Rosie, kill that reincarnated bitch and get your ass down here already!"

"What if it's not as easy for her as it is for you, Reggie?"

I turned from the bodies in the car to the direction of the voice, startled and ready to attack. I saw someone that I hadn't seen in a long time sitting pristinely upon a dumpster. She had on that pretty white dress with the pink polka dots that she used to wear on Sundays when our neighbors would invite us over for lemonade after church. She wasn't a day over seventeen. Her wide-brimmed straw hat had a freshly picked sunflower sticking out of it. She smiled like she loved me, despite everything that had happened since those distant days.

"Darcy, what're you doing here?"

"I thought I'd drop in and see how my brother and sister were doing. Turns out you need my help more than I thought."

"Don't tell mama and papa about all this." I said, pointing my thumb back at Jo and Camille. "It wasn't supposed to end up this way at all. I made one little mistake and then a whole bunch of other people started to get hurt. It was her fault in the first place, Darcy! Citrine, that lady-boy whore! She tricked me into thinking she was a real woman, made me want her, said she'd do anything if I could get her a meeting with Gustavo, put up a real good fight and well… well she made me kill her! Then Bob got in the way, then Rose was the only person I could turn to and now she's up there killing the body of a sweet little girl named Katie that somehow got possessed with the angry spirit of Citrine, that lady-boy whore! Get it now? It wasn't ever my fault, not at all! Why, I'm a victim of bad fortune!"

My dead sister never stopped smiling as I described the macabre events of the past 24 hours, and when I was done she slid off the top of the dumpster and walked over to me. An arctic wind started to blow from high above and her sundress whipped about wildly in it. She showed no signs of being cold; she just held her hat on with one soft little hand. When she reached me, she took her other soft little hand and put it on my cheek.

"Reggie, you poor thing. Of course it's not your fault. You've had it hard, little brother, ever since we were kids. You were always a scrawny boy and the other boys did torment you so for being more interested in models and books and playing cards than races and tractors and rolling in the mud. You were a fish out of water in the country." She walked past me and removed her hand gently from my face, sitting down on the edge of the seat of the car, not giving the girls any notice. "It's a shame that no woman ever loved you proper. I know you've tried to take a wife and been disappointed and abandoned many times. I know that hurts. The only thing worse than loving and losing is never loving at all."

She shook her head sadly. "Life hasn't been good to the Bitters kids. You'd have never guessed it when we were back on the farm, playing around in the tall grass just as happy as could be, but life had all its horror and pain saved up for us from the very beginning. It's not easy to accept death, little brother, especially when life is so hard by itself. I didn't accept George's death very well. He was my husband for over forty years. We were supposed to be together forever. When you're with someone for that long, Reggie, and one of you dies first and leaves the other behind… it's almost like the living one has to die twice. Their heart dies one day and their body keeps on going without it. George and I had never been able to have kids and we accepted that a long time ago, but after a few years of being the morose widow I woke up one day and just decided I wasn't ready to die yet. So I went down to the orphanage, looking for something to love. When I went in, all the desperate little children ran to me and tried to hold my hand and hug me and asked me to take them home, and I spent that day getting to know them. When the sun started to set, I asked the mistress of the house if I had met all the children and she reluctantly admitted that there was one other, but that I most certainly would not want it. I told her to show me anyway and she took me up to a third floor bedroom where a five-year old girl sat looking out her window. At the ends of her legs were tightly wound bundles of blood-stained cloth and the affecting absence of feet. I went and sat beside her, but she said nothing and didn't take her eyes from the window. I asked her what she was looking at. 'The summer,' she said, 'I wish I were in it.' I frowned and the mistress told me that her condition was too severe for her to be exposed to the heat and light. That was when I knew that Peridot needed my love more than any of the others. As long as they could run to meet the visitors, I knew the other children would be alright. That girl was mine, mine to love and heal, my companion until I returned to the sky to be with George. She was the rest of my life. So I took her home and we both started to heal."

"What ever happened to her when you died?" I asked.

"I haven't the slightest idea. My sickness came on so suddenly, and I was so ashamed and guilt-stricken to have made her homeless when she was my only duty. I never thought her condition would be so complicated, that so many doctors would need to see her, that it would cost so much… it cost us everything we had. We had to give away her prosthetics and her crutches and her wheelchair and I pushed her to the homeless shelter in a shopping cart. The misery on that little girl's face when she was trapped inside again without a thing to her name killed me, Reggie. I believe that I died of shame and failure. But it's even worse now, not knowing where she is or what became of her when I left her behind…" a tear rolled down my sister's cheek and I reached out to wipe it away, but recoiled at the cold, waxy feel of her skin. Her image blurred for a moment, and when it came back into focus, she was an old woman again. Even older than when I last saw her. The way she looked when she died the year before. She cried silently and I didn't dare break that eternal silence. After a few minutes, she seemed to realize that I was still there and smiled as she laid eyes upon me again.

"Do you ever think about the old farm, Reggie? The place we grew up? I do all the time. The memory of it grows fonder with every year that I spend anywhere else. There's no going back there, y'know. You can't un-fry an egg, little brother, and you can't get your innocence back just the same way. You can't go back to ignorance once you know. You can't be truly happy again once you've felt true pain. You can't be yourself again once that person has died. You can't love someone again once they've hated you. All the feelings, all the thoughts, they fill up your head when you're old and there's no room left for the light of God that used to fill it when it was smaller. No room left for wonder or laughter. I suppose that's one reason to be kind to children. If they aren't happy when they're that young, they never will be."

My thoughts went back to Katie and Rose. What was taking her so long to finish what I'd started? I couldn't allow myself to pity the girl that Rose was killing. Her soul had obviously been pushed out of her body by that sinister succubus Citrine, and I delighted in the idea of her being murdered twice. If only I could have been the one to do it… but my hands were full. I felt something cold on my face and thought that Darcy's ghost was touching me again, but she was only sitting in front of me crying silently again. Her beautiful black hair had turned grey and very thin and her wrinkles were deeper. I felt the coldness again on my hand and squinted at it in the dark. The little thing melted away before my eyes. Upon looking down, I saw that my shirt was covered in them. Snowflakes. I looked up and saw them dancing together in their graceful free-fall. Keeping my eyes on the sky, I spoke to my sister again.

"Cheer up Darcy, Rose should be showing up any minute. Then we'll all be together again, just like old times before you moved out and mom started disappearing all the time. We'll stick together from here on. We can go back to the old house and live there together. What do you think about that? Darcy?" she didn't respond, so I turned back to her. All her hair had fallen out and it was lying in clumps and sheets on her lap and the seat. Her face was sagging and starting to look like rubber. "Darcy? Are you alright?"

"I'm sorry, Reggie." Her whisper sounded like a distant wind howling through an empty house.

"Sorry? You got nothin' to be sorry about. I'm glad you came to visit me tonight."

"Yes, I know but I lied to you about the reason I came. I didn't come to check up on you. I came to take Rose home."

"Well that's great! Like I said, we can all go home together and—"

"No, Reggie." She looked up at the snowy clouds. "Home. Our sister's dead like me now. She died trying to do the right thing despite you telling her otherwise. That's what I meant when I said it wasn't as easy for her as it is for you. Killing someone isn't a one-sided action. Every murder is a battle lost. You just didn't expect Rose to lose the battle you put her in with Citrine. But she did. Citrine's more powerful than you could ever imagine."

"No, Rose can't die! I need her! I need to go save her! I need to go _kill _that _bitch_ Citrine again, dammit! My job's never done! I'll go get her, alright—"

"There's nothing left to do. There's nothing left to say. There's nothing left. Look, see the lights? Those are ambulance lights coming to take Citrine to the hospital for Katie's broken nose. They aren't for Rose. Rose won't be discovered until later on. That's the way it always goes for us, little brother. The Bitters kids at the bottom of the heap. There's just no getting around it. We just weren't meant to be winners." Her face was sagging inches off of her face as her whispering got gentler and farther away, and by the time it had faded to nothing her face had fallen off and landed in a squishy pile on top of her hands which rested on her lap. Her empty, naked skull stared off into the darkness as before. I lifted her legs and turned them so they faced the front of the car and I could close the door. Then I got in the driver's seat and started the engine. I looked back at the second floor window and saw Katie's body running down the hall to apartment 2J clutching the nose that I broke.

"I wish I didn't have to leave you behind, Rosie, but I can't stick around here forever. Me and Darcy, we're going back to the farm. Maybe you can join us in a little while." Once I was on the highway headed out of L.A., I decided the silence in the car was too thick. In the rearview mirror I could see that the rest of Darcy's flesh had fallen away and that her jaw had started to hang low. That polka dot dress was still so pretty on her skeleton. I turned on the radio and heard Ella Fitzgerald singing about black coffee. Rosie used to sing that song so beautifully. "But now you're gone and it's my fault. My punishment is to walk this Earth alone. I wonder what will be Citrine's punishment for so cruelly ruining my life… Oh Lord almighty, if only I'd never met that evil woman. She's conspired to take everything from me! Will her path of destruction never end?"

**Gina's POV**

Having gotten no more useful information from her since her drawn-out condemnation of her ill-fated daughter, I left Mrs. Hu in peace before long and was heading back to the station to look into the results from the crime lab on the blood from the Palm Woods lobby when I heard a terrible scream. I hurried back to the waiting room where I had seen Kendall sitting and saw him there still, holding Kelly's arms and trying to bring her down from hysteria.

"What's going on here?" I asked them.

"Who are you?" Kelly screeched.

"I'm Gina Simms from the LAPD."

"Oh, perfect! Come quick! Gustavo's dead! Someone pulled his plug!"

Kendall and I followed Kelly back to Gustavo's room as she tripped over herself, trying to run and spasm and fidget all at the same time. When we got there, Gustavo was lying undisturbed in his bed and all the machines around him were working perfectly, but it was clear as day that he had died from something because his heart monitor was flatlining unwaveringly.

"It doesn't look like anyone pulled the plug, Kelly…" Kendall said cautiously, wondering about his friend's hold on reality. I yelled out into the hall that we needed some help and one of the orderlies came to Gustavo's room. She confirmed that he had just died and said that she was sorry there was nothing they could do to save him.

"No, this isn't right!" Kelly started screeching again. "Look! On the ground! There's a—wait a minute! What happened to the earring? There was an earring right here! Next to the plug, which had been yanked out of the wall, I swear!" The orderly tried to tell Kelly that Gustavo had probably died of natural causes and that he was unlikely to have lasted long after the extent of the damage that his heart had underwent. "NO! HE WAS **MURDERED**, I TELL YOU! **MURDERED**!"

"Gustavo's dead? He's really gone?" a sad, quiet voice asked from behind us. I turned and saw two teenage boys in the doorway holding each other's hand and looking in at the body. Kendall looked at them and his thick eyebrows eclipsed his teary eyes. He nodded solemnly. The shorter boy of the couple got choked up and his partner pulled him into a comforting embrace. _These kids really look out for each other… _I thought, _but that doesn't mean they aren't sneaky and secretive and dangerous. This is the third case I've taken on today that directly relates to them, and that's nowhere near normal. I need to take them all down to the station and get them into the interrogation room one at a time to get to the bottom of these deaths. _Without saying a thing, a third person appeared behind the couple. Kelly whimpered when she saw him and rushed past the boys to hold onto him for dear life.

"Oh Percy, can you believe it? After all we've been through, I never thought it would end like this!"

"Who would do something like that?" the boy that I would come to know as Logan cried into the boy that I would come to know as Carlos' chest.

"What are we going to do without him?" Kendall whispered rhetorically, staring into the man's eyes, searching for his departed spirit.

"I can't help but think we're all somewhat responsible… but one of us finished him for real and we need to find out who did it. He didn't deserve to die tonight. With all he's done for us, the only way we have left to repay him is by bringing his murderer to justice." Everyone's eyes turned to Carlos after he said this.

"Thank you, Carlos!" Kelly said. "Thank you for believing me! I'm not crazy! I know that someone pulled that plug! They must've come back in and set it up to look like Gustavo died of natural causes to cover up their crime! And whoever that was, they were wearing diamond stud—" Kelly stopped short as Mrs. Knight came running down the hall and stopped beside her and Percy in the doorway. "—earrings. Just like yours."

"What about my earrings?" she asked, clutching them defensively.

"You killed him. Kristen… HOW COULD YOU? You held my hand until I was asleep and then you crept in here and **killed** Gustavo? WHY?"

"No, I didn't! Kelly, I promise you, I did no such thing! I don't— I don't know who killed Gustavo…"

"Shut up! MURDERER! YOU MURDERING BITCH!" Kelly punched Mrs. Knight in the face and started pulling as hard as she could on her hair. Kendall and the man that I would come to know as Freight Train grabbed each of Kelly's arms and tried to pry her off of Mrs. Knight, who was now having her head pushed into the tile floor and screaming for help. I took a pair of handcuffs off of my belt and secured it around Kelly's wrists while the men held her still.

"Kelly Wainwright, I'm placing you under arrest for assault and battery. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you—"

"Wait, don't arrest her!" Mrs. Knight said, standing up and swiftly taking her hairbrush out of her purse to mend her damaged 'do.

"Frankly Mrs. Knight, there may or may not have been a murder committed here tonight and right now you're all still suspects, so… whether it be in handcuffs or peacefully, you're all coming downtown with me right now."

"No, I don't have time to be suspected of Gustavo's murder! James just showed up in the ER with my daughter Katie, whose face has practically been smashed in and I need to be here for her! That's what I came to tell y'all when Kelly went all psycho chick on me!"

"And I'd do it again in a heartbeat, you coldhearted sociopathic murdering TRAMP!" Kelly bellowed and launched a mouthful of spit onto Mrs. Knight's face.

"Hey! You stifle down or I'll tase you good!" I threatened her.

"Mrs. Knight, I know you want to stay with your daughter but I'm sure the doctors are taking good care of her and there's really nothing you can do right now. Just tell James to call you if anything happens. The rest of us really need to listen to Det. Simms and give her our statements about what happened tonight." Freight Train mediated. As Gustavo's bodyguard, he had acquired many of the same skills that police officers use to calm frenzied people. He seemed helpful enough… but I could tell that he had some skeletons in his closet, just like the rest of them. I wasn't ready to trust one of them farther than I could throw them. And as for Freight Train… I couldn't even throw him one inch. Not even with a catapult.

**Citrine's POV**

I had told James that I ran into a door. Oh my God, that boy would've believed me if I'd said I fell off my dinosaur. I was ashamed of myself for using the oldest lie in the book, but I guessed it would have to do. It didn't occur to him that there was no door between 2J and the ice machine. I think he was just scared that my mom, his cougar crush, would be mad at him for letting me break my nose after babysitting me for like an hour. But she wasn't. She was just as scared as he was. When she came into my room after they wrapped up my nose temporarily, she was already pale, but when she saw me in my sad state she turned even paler.

"Oh sweetie I'm so sorry…! I can't believe this happened to you! Running into a door! It could happen to anybody! What did the doctors say?"

"They said I might need plastic surgery to stabilize my nose so I can breathe through it again… but it might be fragile even after that…"

She showered me with kisses and hugs but when she left, she never came back. James came in a little while later to tell me that she had gone to the police station with Kendall, Carlos, Logan, Kelly and Freight Train and that she would come to see me the next day. That's when a woman with a badge on her shirt entered the room behind him.

"Unfortunately, this brave little girl will have to spend the night alone." The detective said.

"What? Why can't I stay with her?" James asked.

"Because I just got informed on my radio that there's been a missing person's report filed for Nicole Scherzinger. You were at Club 'Cuda last night, the last place she was seen before she disappeared. I figure you might as well come down to the station to give a statement too, since pretty much everyone you know is already on their way there and you must be somehow involved in all of this. Don't worry, your two lady friends will be sent an escort as well. Someone must have seen something to help us find out what happened to Nicole between the three of you, don't you think?"

And like that they were both gone, and I was left in a dark room with an endless expanse of terrifying night before me and no one to comfort my weary mind. I thought about Bitters kidnapping poor Jo and Camille and how there was really no way the police could find him before he did whatever he wanted to them. If only he hadn't gotten his attack bitch to slit my throat, I would've been able to stop him. But she got what was coming to her. _You'll get what's coming to you, Citrine. _Buddha Bob's voice echoed in my head. And he said that before I squished the old woman with that ice machine like an ant under my shoe.

"Oh well!" I laughed quietly so as not to offend the silence of the hospital room. "Nothing can stop me now. Bitters couldn't stop me. Buddha Bob couldn't stop me. That old woman couldn't stop me, either. I now know exactly how powerful I am. I shook the whole room. I held that old woman in her place and I pried the ice machine out of the floor. I can do anything I set my mind to… literally. Why, if I set my mind to it I bet I could heal this nose right up!" I closed my eyes and focused on my aura. I thought powerful thoughts. I brought the joy of becoming the girl that I was always meant to be and falling in love with the boy that I was always meant to have to the surface. My aura filled up with warm feelings like air under a sheet and I pumped those thoughts into my nose, thinking about my nose being straight and perfect and healed and not hurting anymore. I felt the pain slowly melt away as I summoned up all my love and happiness and peace and convinced myself that everything was going to go right. Suddenly I felt a burst of euphoria shake through my whole body, kind of like a mini-orgasm. Then I landed on the bed with a thud (I hadn't even realized I was levitating). I unwrapped my nose and felt it with my hands. There was no wet blood, just the dry residue from before. Everything felt fine. It didn't hurt.

"I'm okay!" I giggled in delight and jumped up and down on my bed just as I had in Kendall's room when I realized I'd gotten away with my first murder. "This is so _awesome_! Have fun in Hell, you old pancake woman! Ahaha! I'm still living it up on Earth, for your information!" Tired out, I sat back down and sighed contentedly. I got under the covers and was falling asleep when I heard a wailing voice from far away.

"Tell mama and papa I'm sorry I won't be joining y'all in heaven tonight… tell 'em I'm sorry, Darcy…!"

I opened my eyes and shot straight up in bed. "Darcy? That's the name of the woman that Peridot called mama… oh my God, Peridot! How could I forget about you? How could I leave you behind?" I jumped out of bed and started pacing around the room. "I never even thought about what would happen to you! How could I leave my old life behind when you depended on me? Oh no, you must be so scared, so cold, so lonely and hungry! Peridot, I'm sorry, I'm coming for you! I'm going to bring you back to live with my new family and you'll be happy, I promise!" I opened the door slowly to make sure no one was lurking in the hallway, then bolted toward the front doors, somehow evading capture most of the way.

I passed by a gurney on my way out that supported the body of none other than Gustavo Rocque, the man that I'd always dreamed of meeting and making my first record with, and had to double back to be sure it was him. "Oh my, Gustavo… how the mighty have fallen. I have to say I never thought we would meet like this. You're much less lively in person!" I laughed and asked the nurse what had happened to him and she said he died of a heart attack. _A heart attack… yes, that sounds quite like something that would happen at the Chocolate Warehouse. Wait a minute… it's all coming back to me now!_ My vision returned in a flood. I saw Gustavo's head hit the table. I saw his plug being pulled by… _yes, they would do it… of course it was them… _I saw Kelly being taken away in handcuffs, then Freight Train, then Mrs. Knight, then I saw an explosion of things that were from farther in the future, but I forgot those as soon as I saw them like before. I clutched my head in pain and fainted for a moment afterward. The nurse helped me up as I came to a few seconds later and took me back to my room. I knew I'd have to be a lot sneakier to get out a second time.

I was halfway through the parking lot and had the highway in my crosshairs (which I could easily follow to find the home I'd been sharing with Peridot) when I passed a woman who I didn't recognize at first, but when she called after me I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Walter… you little devil, you thought a new body could keep me from seeing your roguish soul?"

Her voice to my ears was like iron claws scraping bone. I gritted my teeth at the sound of it. Would I never be free of her? "Leave me alone mother."

"I knew there was more than what met the eye when I saw you in the hospital. Mr. Bitters barely tapped you with that coffee pot. Your body is still up there because you left it. You left it behind. You left your father and I behind too. After all we did for you! You ungrateful little bastard!"

I turned to face her. She really did hate me. I could see it in her eyes. So I decided there was nothing to stop me, no reason for me to spare her feelings. "You're right mother. I left you and daddy behind. Why? Because I never loved either of you. Why? Because neither of you ever loved me. _Why?_ Because of one little thing that made me different that _you could never accept!_ I told you when I was a little girl that my name was Citrine, and you shut me up! You made me forget it! You pushed it down deep inside of me so that I was miserable for years afterward! Well, it's over. You lost me. You might as well forget you ever had me, which shouldn't be very hard since you never gave a shit about me in the first place. I've got a new life, a new mother, and all the love that you never gave me to look forward to. So goodbye, mother, and rest in pieces." I turned to leave.

"Walter… you're right." _What? She's never said that before. _"I never loved you. I didn't understand you. You were too strange, too much to handle. You embarrassed me and your father every day. But, even though I'm glad to be able to live the rest of my life in peace without you, I'm also glad that you discovered your abilities, and that you used them to find your own path."

"My… abilities? You mean flying around, jumping bodies, reading minds, moving things, seeing the future, healing myself…?"

"All that and more, Walter. So much more. I can do all the same things. I never told you because it's a woman's sacred secret. We have the blood of the phoenix in our veins, Walter. It's a legend that's as old as China itself. You have no idea how powerful you are. You must learn to control it in your own way, or else risk destroying everything you've worked so hard to attain."

"Yeah, whatever. I'm not scared of myself, my powers, or anything anymore." I started to walk away from her.

"Be vigilant, Walter. I've seen your future. It is a dangerous one."

**Jane's POV**

If I could go back, there are a million things I would do differently. I had a vision right after Walter was conceived, and I saw our life together. He was a girl, clearly, and his name was Citrine. I disregarded the vision when I learned that my child would be a boy. And when I heard my young son confirming the details of that vision as soon as he could talk, I got scared and tried to stop it. I even did it again over ten years later when he started saying all the same things for the second time. Even up to that moment in the parking lot, I told myself it was all some misunderstanding, some sickness, some delusion. I even thought that maybe my vision had somehow tainted him in the womb and made him think he was what he wasn't. But when I saw his aura around that girl's body, when I realized that he had seized her body and when he told me what he could do, I knew. I knew that he had the soul of a woman, because the powers of the spirit warriors are only passed down from woman to woman in the Chinese bloodlines. That was the moment when I lost my son forever, and when I saw that I would lose my daughter forever as well if I didn't do something drastic to get her back. But I let her get away that night, and when I went home I hatched a foolproof plan that would make my ancestors proud.


	19. Chapter 19

**Katie's POV**

I couldn't flail around in the ocean of Hell that sloshed around in Citrine's brain anymore. I let myself drown and just went to sleep. Something itchy on my backside woke me up after what could've been no time or forever. I sat up and moved away from it. A little mouse had been trying to gnaw on my butt. I shooed it away and looked around at what was definitely not the bottom of the ocean. Eight-foot-tall golden grass stretched out above me. I was in an overgrown field. I got up, dusted myself off and trekked my way through the grass until I reached an opening and saw a big old house with a wrap-around porch. I went up the back stairs and into the parlor through an open door. There was rocking chair in the corner where a skeleton dressed in a polka dot dress and a sunhat sat with knitting needles in her hands. Below her, Peridot sat on a little pillow just staring into her hollow eye sockets.

"Peridot? Is that you?"

She turned around and smiled when she saw me. "Katie! What're you doing in my dream?"

"I don't know. I was in Citrine's dream just a second ago. I guess everyone's dreams must be connected somehow. I crossed into yours without even meaning to." I walked over to the corner and sat next to my friend. I noticed her perfect feet still attached to her ankles and smiled. _Dreams are nice, aren't they Peridot? I'm not going to burst your bubble by saying anything. _"Who's this?" I asked of the knitting woman.

"Mama. But she's different this time. Something's wrong. I have a bad feeling about it."

"Well, I suppose I could understand that… she's not looking very good right at this moment…"

"No, it's not just that. She appears as a skeleton from time to time. But I have a sense of foreboding tonight, of some impending disturbance. I don't know…" she shrugged and turned to me. "I'm not worried. I know that Citrine will come back any minute and everything will be fine. She probably just got tied up with something at the restaurant and ended up spending the night there. It's happened before."

I bit my lip. Poor Peridot! How could I tell her that her surrogate mother was dead when she'd never met her biological mother, when the woman that she called mama sat dead before us, when everyone that she'd ever put her trust in had let her down in the worst possible ways? I couldn't. But who would save her from starvation in her cell under the overpass when I, the only living person who knew of her condition, was trapped in a spiritual purgatory that barred me from reentering the physical world? It tore me up inside to think of her dying alone.

"I'm doing my best not to be scared, Katie. I know I've got good fortune ahead. Citrine gave me one last night." She reached into the pocket of her ragged dress and pulled out a little slip of paper. "Don't doubt yourself. No one is too weak to save another, too young to know what's right or too small to be loved. Doesn't that sound good? I know when I look at this that no matter where Citrine is, she's thinking of me. And that's enough, even if she doesn't ever come back."

"Hey, let me see that." I took the fortune from her and looked it over. Sure enough, it was the same as the one I'd given Citrine the night before, and therefore the same as mine. I wasn't naïve enough to consider this a coincidence. If Citrine had given Peridot her fortune, then Peridot and I had become fortune buddies, and that suddenly made a lot of sense. That subtle bond between us might explain why she was able to pull me out of Citrine's head and into her dream. The lucky numbers on Peridot's fortune were 11, 1, 20, 9, 5, 11, 14, 9, 7, 8, and 20. I wished I had my fortune so that I could compare it. When I looked up, my friend was gone and I was stuck, once again alone, in a place where time was not and nothing happened. Stuck in her memory, her fantasy, but it was much better than Citrine's nightmare.

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

I took Kelly's car down to the police station while she rode in the back of Gina's cruiser. Logan and Carlos were oddly silent in the backseat, but my son looked even worse in the passenger's seat next to me. I almost never worried about Kendall, but I could tell he wasn't taking Gustavo's death that well. I felt guilty about what I knew that I couldn't tell him. I figured it would come to light soon enough. I honestly didn't know for sure who'd killed him, but I had good reason to be 99% sure of my suspect. I knew that Kelly had seen my earring on the floor right in the middle of the crime scene, but since I'd come back and gotten it before she brought the others in there was no way she could prove it was ever there and considering the way she'd acted out in front of the detective I figured her testimony would be taken with a grain of salt anyway. When I'd found Gustavo dead, I knew someone had killed him. I'd heard both Hawk and Freight Train express desire to do so, but seen neither of them do it. I was scared by the sight of him dead, and quickly picked up the plug and stuck it back into the wall hoping it could still revive him. But it was too late. He had passed, and I panicked even more at seeing this and ran for the hills at that point, which was when I ran right into James and Katie in the ER on my way out.

When we arrived at the station, Freight Train was being given a moment to talk to Kelly before she was booked and my heart was set aflutter when Gina led me first to the interrogation room and James was already in it. The thoughts came a mile a minute, all the paranoia that had almost driven me to killing Gustavo rattling around in my head. The only reason I could think of for him to be in there was that the authorities had somehow found out about us, and the thought of that froze my heart to the core.

"What's James doing here?" I asked Gina.

"Nicole Scherzinger went missing after partying at Club 'Cuda last night. According to James' story, he was there too and there's no way he could've not seen her, considering she was reportedly engaged in a dance-off with an old rival of hers. Logan and Carlos were reported to have been involved in the battle as well. I'll be talking to them after you. This should only take a minute. Just wait out here while I ask him a few questions." She went inside and I saw James jump slightly at the sound of the door, then greet her and begin biting his nails nervously as soon as she started to talk. _Shit James, don't tweak out on me now! We can get through this. It's over. No one has to know! Just keep lying! It's not that hard!_

I thanked God that I was behind one-way glass. The sight of me would only make him crack. I pressed my ear up against it but the room was soundproof. No longer bearing to see him sweat, I sat down on the concrete floor and counted to ten. I had had my eyes closed for a few minutes when a dark voice spoke to me from above.

"You'll pay for this Kristen. They'll find out it was you and everyone will hate you as much as I do."

I looked up at Kelly and shook my head in resignation as the police officer that was holding her arms behind her back led her away to the cellblock at the end of the hallway. There was nothing left for me to say that could convince her of my innocence. It was in my best interest to keep quiet until I could talk to… him. I saw him standing at the end of the hallway and stood up immediately. He walked over to me and told me we should duck out for a minute to set things straight. He always did have a way of just showing up and leaving unnoticed. He was sly like that. I always got the impression that he was one step ahead of everyone else. He was certainly one step ahead of me. Behind the police station, a few inches of snow had already accumulated on the ground and I couldn't help but stand close to Hawk to absorb some of his body heat. The wind was merciless. I felt vulnerable and I could tell he sensed it.

"You did it, didn't you?" I asked him before he could have the first word.

"You think I killed Gustavo?"

"Of course I do! We both saw Freight Train put his hand on that plug and look straight at Gustavo's face with the most intense expression I've ever seen. Who could say what was going through his mind, but after a minute or so, he took his hand off of it and he left. He wouldn't have come back and done it a few minutes later. He made the decision to take the higher road and he just didn't want to murder anyone tonight. I **know** I didn't do it, which makes me equally sure that you **did**."

He nodded slowly and licked his lips, clearing the snow from them. "I'm not surprised that you know it was me. You're smart. I'm counting on that. We have to team up here. There's no other path. Either we do this together or we both have an equal chance of going down."

I was speechless for a moment. I shook my head violently and stared him straight in the eyes. He had just admitted that he killed Gustavo Rocque without flinching. In fact, he seemed even cockier than before! "How on Earth do we have an equal chance of going down? **You** did it!"

"You see though, that's the thing. You'll say I did it, because you're the only person in this whole situation with all the information. And that's good, because you're the quirky den mother with a heart of gold and a penchant for cardigans that wouldn't give a fly a noogie. It's good that you have all the information because you have no idea what to do with it. But I can help you with that. Now tell me Mrs. Knight, or should I call you Kristen?"

"Honestly, I'm tired of everyone calling me 'Mrs. Knight'. My husband has been dead for years. I'm no missus and my name shouldn't even be Knight anymore. I liked my maiden name better. Call me Ms. Greene. God, I haven't been called that in decades. But it's time."

"Alright then, tell me Ms. Greene. If you tell the police that I killed Gustavo, and Kelly tells them that you killed Gustavo, and I tell them that Freight Train killed Gustavo, what do you suppose would happen?"

"It would be a draw. My word versus yours versus hers versus his, since Freight Train would obviously refute your accusation since it's a bold-faced lie! And wait a minute, how do you even know that Kelly is accusing me of the murder? You just got here!"

"Oh, Ms. Greene, my dear… you really do see the best in people, don't you? I planted your earring in the crime scene, of course, to put us on equal ground so that I'd have you on my side! I took it off your ear when we were hiding under the bed together and I dropped it after I pulled the troll's plug. I figured that Kelly would find the body first, though there was some chance that Kendall would have found it and covered up your involvement since you are his mother, but I made that bet and I won."

"What would you have done if it was Kendall who found Gustavo first?"

"I had a plan B."

"What was it?"

"A good showman never reveals what's under his hat. The world shall never know."

I turned away from Hawk in disgust and watched the snow swirl around underneath the streetlamp. I remembered James' face in the light of the streetlamps the night before. He really did look like Kyle. I hated that. I needed my troubles to end so that I could start forgetting about everything that had gone on in the last 24 hours. But was I willing to frame an innocent man to do it? _Well, Freight Train's not exactly innocent. He got just as close to killing Gustavo as I did. That makes him bad enough to deserve what's coming. After all, would I really hold it against anyone if I got sent away for the murder? The evidence is all there, enough to send me away if I stand on my own. No, that can't happen. I have to make a deal with the devil to save the people I love and myself. Who loves Freight Train, anyway? Gustavo was his only connection to this world and he (almost) killed him! No one's going to miss Freight Train when he goes away. It's the smallest toll for my family to pay, so I have to go for it._

"So you want me to back up everything you say. That way, our story will be the only one supported by two people and that will make it the strongest. And Freight Train will probably go away for the rest of his life." My eyes fell to the ground and I felt a shiver of guilt travel up my spine.

"Oh honey, don't feel bad for the big oaf. Look at him! He's probably already been to prison plenty of times. He'll be a shoe-in for the conviction and everyone will be satisfied. I'm sure he'll be the king of the state pen in no time!" Hawk rubbed my shoulder gently with one hand and I realized that he was right. It was a good plan, and I was already sold on it. _Ms. Kristen Greene, perjurer __**and **__statutory rapist! I'm guilty of two felonies in one weekend, and it ain't even Sunday yet!_

And so Hawk and I snuck our way back into the station without anyone seeing us and he made like he had just shown up. Gina came out of the interrogation room with James, who looked shaken and jittery but not mortally terrified, so I knew we were fine. We shared a meaningful look when I passed by him to enter the room, but said nothing that would encourage any suspicion. He probably went to consort with Kendall, Carlos and Logan, which was good. The closer those four boys stayed, the better things were bound to end up for everyone. I wondered if anyone had even broken the news about Gustavo to him yet. I put on a brave face and gave Gina the best performance of a fake testimony that I've ever given. She ate it up. She asked me about the earring that Kelly said she saw and I said it must have been a trick of the light because I was too busy tending to my daughter to run back to Gustavo's room, pick it up, put it on, run back to Katie, then run back to Gustavo's room a third time while everything else was going on.

The story that I gave was the one that Hawk gave right after me (Gina decided to postpone her interview with Logan and Carlos in favor of getting to the heart of the murder first): just as the visitors' roster indicated, I went in to have my last words with Gustavo, then Hawk, then Freight Train. Both Hawk and I saw Freight Train enter the room after us. He was the last person to go in before Kelly found the body. Of course it was him! Let the detectives investigate and speculate about intent, but Freight Train was simply the only person who could have done it.

"I didn't say anything to the kids because I know that they like him, but come on detective. Look at him. It's not that farfetched that he killed his boss. The dispute may have been something as petty as this month's wages or as heated as an ongoing love triangle. I don't know. But if it wasn't Freight Train, it was someone who got away with not signing in and not being seen even once."

"Mrs. Knight, what makes you think that Mr. Rocque was even murdered in the first place? The staff at the hospital was perfectly willing to accept that it was a peaceful passing." Gina asked me.

"That just doesn't satisfy me, detective. Gustavo suffered a lot of damage, sure, but he was young. Younger than me! He wasn't ready to just pass on the rest of his life! The life support machines were keeping him alive. He was on the road to recovery. It may have taken him a while, but he would have rehabilitated and been back on his feet before the year was out. I'm convinced that the only way he could've died is by foul play. And not just any foul play, but cold-blooded, malicious murder. After the way he lived, that just isn't right."

**Kelly's POV**

I didn't have long to sit fuming in my cell before the door to the cellblock was opened again and Percy came walking down the aisle in handcuffs.

"Percy! What happened? What're you doin' in here?"

The officer put him in the cell across from me and left without saying anything.

"You won't believe it, Kelly. They're charging me with Gustavo's murder."

He was right. I couldn't believe it. Not only did I not want to believe it, not only could I not stand to believe it, but it was unbelievable in the most profound way. Here I was, shouting to the whole world that Mrs. Knight was a murderer and that she sloppily left evidence to prove it, and I'm the one who gets put in jail with the love of my life to keep me company? How could it possibly end like this? After all that we'd survived, after all we'd done good, it was gonna end like this. I'd be working for Hawk for the rest of my life and Percy would be rotting in prison for the rest of his, both of us with Gustavo's blood on our hands, never to be washed away. I felt like the worst person in the world for making that deal with Hawk. It would've been bad enough to have made it right before Gustavo's heart attack, but I made it right _after_. That's right. I was the crewmember who jumped ship at the first sign of an iceberg. As my boss was being taken away in the ambulance and everyone was preparing to leave the restaurant, Hawk pulled me aside and asked for confirmation that we were on the same page with the deal and I said yes. It was a terrible sin, and I was paying for it dearly. Karma's sword had swung swiftly, for before me sat the greatest punishment that my heart could ever bear: the man that I still loved, that I had always loved and would always love but was too scared and cynical to admit it, leaving me alone forever. I had never seen his face look that way. He was breaking down. He needed me then more than ever, but I still wasn't sure if I was ready to give myself back to him after so many years of trying to forget or ignore him.

"T-tell me what they said." I said, choking back tears that had come at the sight of his.

"I was the last person on the visitors' roster. They said there were witnesses. A doctor at the hospital said that tests proved that Gustavo died unnaturally. When they find my fingerprints on the cord, that'll be it. It'll be enough to put me away. Someone pulled the plug, but it wasn't me. I wanted to, Kelly. I almost did it, for you. I didn't want you to hurt anymore. I knew you would keep letting him hurt you and I wouldn't be around to help you anymore. But I realized that, as much pain as he caused you alive, you still do care about him and it would only have caused you more pain to deal with his death. When I left, he was fine. I wish I could've done more to prevent this."

"You wish you could've done more! Percy, you're a grand man. You rose above your anger. I believe you didn't do it, of course I do! I still remember all the times that we were out together and people did always want to pick fights with us, just 'cause they were jealous. But you never threw a punch. No sir, you stood tall, very tall, and you repelled them with words of strength. That's what I love about you. Your looks are so deceiving. You're the most—" I choked on my tears again and had to stop for a moment. I wiped my face and started again. "You're the most amazing man I've ever met, Percy, and the only man I'll ever love. God and I know that's the truth. Now you do too." I reached my hand out between the bars and across the aisle as far as I could. Tears fell down Percy's face as he did the same with his big, weathered hand and we managed to barely intertwine our fingers with great strain. But it meant so much. I felt more than I'd felt in years. I felt a guppy of love that got swallowed up by a catfish of pain.

"I love you too, Kelly. I never stopped."

"I know Percy. I know. If I could go back to that morning nine years ago and tear up that note that I left you, I would. If I could go back and never leave your side, you bet I would. I would, so fast…"

"If I could go back, knowing what I know now, I'd have let you keep the baby. So what if we all died of starvation on the mean streets? We'd have at least been together. The amount of loneliness that I've born since you left is something no heart should ever have to feel… lesser men might have quit. But I found you again, not on purpose but just through perseverance. It was all for this moment. This moment when I could hold your hand one last time. Even if I spend every night for the rest of my life alone, just like I have the last nine years of nights, I'll be able to remember the love in your eyes right now and I'll be okay. My soul will have rest. You can be in peace with that."

I shook my head pitifully and squeezed his hand tighter. "No. Can't you see? I'll never have peace after this, not while we're apart. Looking back now, I can't see any reason that we spent the last two years apart the way we have. It's been so pointless. We should've been together. Like this…" and there was nothing left to say. I just needed to cry for a while. Percy didn't make a sound, and it was dark in both our cells, but I had a feeling that he was crying too.

"She lied, didn't she?" I asked him when my eyes had dried.

"Kristen Knight? I don't know."

"It was her earring on the floor. I don't have the slightest idea why she would've done it, but what other reason would she have for running back in to remove it before I showed the detective to the body? She covered it up, and she's still covering it up. I can just see her lying her lips away in the interrogation room, framing you to save her own ass. She's not going to get away with it. I'll get the truth out, somehow. But first things first, I need to get you out of here before the fake evidence piles up and buries you alive."

"Get me out? Kelly, that's crazy!"

"No it ain't. I'm gonna bust you out of this jailhouse and you're gonna go on the run. Don't tell me you don't know how. We've run from the police plenty of times and you know these streets like the back of your big black hand. You're gonna stay on the lamb until I clear your name and get Mrs. Knight put away for what she did. Then you can reappear and we can be together like we should be."

After a bit of coercion, Percy agreed to my plan and we waited for the guard to pass through. We were the only two in the room; there were four empty cells around us. I called the young man over and flirted with him until he had gotten in just the right position for Percy to grab him by the collar of his shirt and give his head a good knock against the bars of his cell. Then he took the keychain off of his belt as he lay unconscious on the floor and unlocked the door. He hurried over to me and we shared a long, passionate kiss through the bars. Eventually, he had to go and I bade him good luck and begged him not to get caught and, above all else, not to try to contact me or anyone else 'cause it was too risky. He nodded, smiled slightly and saluted me as he snuck out the backdoor. Then I was alone. Who would've thought that I would have more hope for my life than ever before when I spent the first night of my adult life in jail? All those lockups from when I was a teenager, they don't count. They were stricken from my record, but the wisdom I gained from them will never leave me.

**James' POV**

Kristen came into the office and sat as far away from me as possible once she was done giving her statement. Kendall was sitting next to her and Logan and Carlos were sitting between us. She didn't look at any of us. She just stared into space while the four of us talked about Gustavo's death. My friends had broken the news to me while she was talking to Det. Simms and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was a reality check much more real than Bitters killing Buddha Bob, Katie breaking her nose or Nicole disappearing combined. It was something which would completely alter our lives, an event that might result in us going home to Minnesota. Gustavo was the man who discovered us. Who was to say that, without him, we wouldn't go back to being nobodies, and when we were so close to having our dreams come true! His touch lingered on every part of our lives, from the hotel that he rented a room in for us to the songs that he wrote for us to the car that he hired for us to the studio that he designated to only us where he worked with us to make the album that we had just finally finished. We owed him everything. He had ruled over every day of our lives since he brought us to L.A., and taking him away was like removing the keystone from Big Time Rush's archway. Surely everything would crumble and fall down. That's what I thought then. I suppose that I was right and wrong. There were still so many things to come before me and my friends would find peace again.

Det. Simms took each of my band mates in for questioning one at a time. All the while, I couldn't take my eyes off of Kristen, whose eyes were looking at something far away. I wanted to say something to her. More than that, I wanted to sit down next to her, hold her in my arms again, kiss her and tell her everything would be okay if only we were together. I wanted to be her man for real, but I knew that could never happen so I told myself that I just wanted to say _something _to her. I didn't even have enough courage to do that. Looking back, I wish desperately that I had. When all of us were sitting together again in the office, I saw one of Det. Simms's subordinate officers come over to her and say something which made her expression change in the slightest, most terrifying way. It became predatory. She looked right at me and made a beeline in my direction. Then she asked me if she could have a word with me in her private office. When the door closed behind me and the silence stretched out between us, I knew I was in for something earth-shatteringly bad.

"Y'know James, it just doesn't make any sense to me."

I gulped and sat opposite her. On her desk were pictures of cats, dogs, birds and frogs, but no human beings. Not even her. "What do you mean?"

"Well I talked to your friends Logan, Carlos and 'Freight Train', who were all at Club 'Cuda last night and they swore by not seeing you there at all. In fact, they looked for you and called your name over the loudspeaker and you never showed yourself. How do you explain that?"

"I must've been taking Camille and Jo home while they were there and I guess I didn't come back until they had already left—" my mouth was running away from me again, just like the last time I'd spilled my guts to Det. Simms. There was just something about her that made me so nervous that I just wanted to confess everything. I'd never been very good at keeping secrets.

"See, that's where your story falls apart. The times don't match up at all. By the time you were taking Jo and Camille home, y'all would've already been at Club 'Cuda for hours, including the time that the dance battle was going on. So let's not beat around the bush anymore. James, look me in the eyes. You weren't at Club 'Cuda last night. Why did you lie to me? What are you covering up? This is your chance to come clean. I want to help you."

I did as she said and held her gaze for a little longer than I should have. I've always had a weakness for blondes. What could I say? I was trying to come up with a new lie when the detective lost her patience and cut me off before I could start.

"Let me up the stakes for you. Jo and Camille are gone. My officers went to the Palm Woods and they found Jo's parents bound and gagged and stuffed in the bathroom of their apartment. Oh, but that's not the best part! There was an entire room overflowing with blood where an old woman had been flattened by an ice machine. The screws had been torn out of the ground. It wasn't an accident. This is as serious as it gets, James. Whatever you're lying about, I assume it's connected because Jo and Camille are in on it too and they've vanished in a flourish of carnage at a very opportune moment. If you don't loosen those lips of yours, the prosecutors' opinions of you will be very different in the long run when this all comes to light… your refusal to confess will be weighed against you in court and—"

"OKAY! Okay, fine! I slept with Mrs. Knight! We had a one-night stand! It meant nothing, it was nothing, it just happened last night and we didn't want anyone to know! I never thought that lying about it would get all tangled up with all these serious things and I don't want anyone to think that we were involved with any of these crazy murders 'cause it's not like that at all…" and just like that, I'd said too much. But this time was worse than the others. Much, much worse. Det. Simms didn't look the least bit shocked at my admission. In fact, she looked pleased. The predator had made her catch.

"You don't have to explain anything, James. I already knew about you and Mrs. Knight. I have ever since I saw the surveillance footage from the Palm Woods' elevator this afternoon. But now that I have your confession, there's no way for me to be challenged in my arrestment of Mrs. Knight. I'm sorry it had to go like this, hun, but the evidence is all here and my department doesn't take cases like this lightly. It's exceedingly likely that your—friend? lover? mother?—whatever she is to you, will be going away for a good chunk of time."

At least Kristen finally looked at me before the night was over. Too bad it had to be a hateful glare as she was marched down to the cellblock after being arrested for having sex with a sixteen-year-old boy of whom she was a legal guardian. What had I done? I'd ruined my friends' lives in a way a thousand times worse than what Freight Train allegedly did in Gustavo's hospital room. I was the worst of us all, and I'd have to pay for it for the rest of my life.


	20. Seven Weeks Later

It's been seven weeks since we last laid eyes upon Big Time Rush.

It's been seven weeks since Rose Bitters, Buddha Bob and Gustavo Rocque departed from the Earth.

It's been seven weeks of sitting in a shrinking concrete cell for Kristen Knight.

Her trial is set to begin in seven days, on her daughter's birthday.

It's been seven weeks of feeling nothing for that disembodied daughter.

Peridot's birthday was over seven weeks ago, but the papers at the orphanage were filled out incorrectly and so according to Darcy and in Peridot's mind, her birthday is in three days.

It's been seven weeks of fugitive games for Percy Ironwood.

It's been seven weeks of unsurety for Logan Mitchell and his half-boyfriend.

It's been seven weeks of newly-wedded bliss for our delusional darling Citrine Hu.

It's been seven weeks of the cold shoulder for James Diamond, who was moved out of Apartment 2J by his roommates mercilessly seven weeks ago and has been staying in different hotels since.

It's been seven weeks of deteriorating emotional stability for Kendall Knight, but he doesn't let on.

It's been seven weeks of captive Hell for Camille and her bi-curious crush, Jo.

It's been seven weeks of looking for Freight Train and Nicole Scherzinger and Gina Simms has all but given up. She knows that both of them must be long, long gone by now.

It's been seven weeks of getting acquainted with her new boss for Kelly Wainwright…

And seven weeks of getting acquainted with his new band and assistant for Shaun Hawk.

Big Time Rush's first album comes out in two days under the Hawk Records label.

Let us return to the Palm Woods and see what fortune has in store for the boys that we love…

**Citrine's POV**

I didn't miss a sunrise. I promised myself that I would never miss one single sunrise for the rest of my new life and for seven weeks I kept that promise. It had gotten to the point where I was inclined to startle awake at the first tint of dawn as it came to my window. For most of the last seven weeks, I had been flying around the country with Big Time Rush doing promotional events like album signings, TV and radio interviews, mini-concerts and random appearances in general. As many as possible, as often as possible, in as many places as possible in the weeks leading up to the release of BTR. Kelly was working reluctantly with Rebecca to schedule it all. From what Kelly told me, they didn't really like each other, but they had a lot to learn from each other so they set their differences aside. Kelly had a lot to learn about the big time music industry, considering that Hawk Records was much larger than Rocque Records had been (yes, had been; the company was liquidated and slurped up through Griffin's golden straw shortly after Gustavo's death) and Rebecca had a lot to learn about Big Time Rush, who she was barely acquainted with but who Kelly knew better than any other person alive. If my mother hadn't been stuck in jail in L.A., I would've stayed at the Palm Woods with her, but seeing as there was no one to take care of me after Jo and Camille's unexplained disappearance I ended up getting dragged along to every city in America. Really, so many cities in so many states that I can no longer say for certain which places I have and haven't been since it became such a blur. In most places we didn't even get a room. We would spend a couple of hours doing the same thing that we had done the day before somewhere else and then we would be whisked away on another plane to go to our second, third, fourth city of the day. Being famous is exhausting. It made me kind of glad that I wasn't.

So it came to pass that we would book three rooms at every hotel that we stayed in. Logan and Carlos would have theirs (none of the rest of us had any real desire to know what went on between the two of them, nor did we have any real problem with it, so when the night was done we mostly left them to their own lovely devices), Kelly and Rebecca would share a room and I got to spend every night with my brother Kendall. Looking back on those seven weeks that we spent together, it gets hard for me to speak. I can barely describe it. There's something sacred about those memories, so wonderful, so packed full of joy and love that words could never do them justice. I thought I loved him at first sight, but before we went on the road together I had no idea what love really meant. By the time we were back home at the Palm Woods for the album release party, Kendall Knight was my whole life, my obsession, my delight, my beginning, my end, my raison d'être, my joie de vivre and every other romantic French phrase I can think of. When I thought about Kendall, my thoughts always turned to French. When I saw Kendall, my heart always turned to mush. When Kendall saw me, I always turned away in embarrassment. When Kendall touched me, the air always turned electric. But to Kendall… I was just a baby sister who had turned quite needy after the imprisonment of our mother.

I felt bad when the boys told me how Det. Simms had come out of her office from talking to James and started to arrest our mom for statutory rape. Not because I didn't want her to go to prison; she'd brought that upon herself by having sex with James while knowing fully well that it was illegal. I felt bad because I was the only person in the room, the only person in the world, in fact (yes, the tabloids got word of it and there was a media storm for a few weeks), that wasn't the least bit shocked by the development. There was a certain guilt that came from seeing Kendall's, Carlos' and Logan's lives implode while I had been aware of and unaffected by the affair all day long. By the time we were all back in the apartment and Carlos and Logan had thrown all of James' stuff out, Kendall was practically catatonic. Nobody had had the strength to confront James at the station after everything else that had happened. They just took a cab home and left him there alone with his sins. I didn't even see him again until we were all on our first plane a few days later. None of us spoke to him at the events. We just sat by him and pretended that everything was okay, dodging questions from reporters about the affair as best as we could. After how sweet he'd been to me when I broke my nose, I wanted to be his friend at a time like that, but he just assumed that I hated him as much as Kendall did and avoided me on his own.

As for my mission to save Peridot and make up for leaving her behind, I had to abandon it. I found my way into our home beneath the overpass, but when I opened the rusty iron door and peered into the blackness, there was no one there. Even the glowing red light of the Chinese lantern was gone. There was no trace of Peridot ever having been there except her outline in the dust on the floor. I knew that someone must have found her, because there was certainly no way she could've left the cave on her own, dead or alive. I accepted that. You can think I'm a terrible person if you want, but I knew that Peridot was a survivor and that the odds were that she had been fed back into the system. It's not like I was her mother! There had been a perfectly good chance that we would never have met. If the conditions hadn't been just perfect, if we hadn't both been homeless, if fortune hadn't had it firmly set in her mind, Peridot and I would have never known each other's names. So I let her slip out of my life just as she'd slipped into it: speechlessly. There are some losses we have to bear, some pain we have to push deep down inside of us so that we can move on with our lives and be happy like we deserve to be. I said a silent goodbye to the dusty den and walked all the way back to the Palm Woods on tiny feet that Peridot would've killed to have.

With all the distractions, no one seemed to question my healed nose and disappearance from the hospital. I just told the boys that I turned out fine and had a police officer take me home. It was a shit lie, just like all of my lies are, but somehow people keep buying them. I never went to visit my own body. I didn't have time to process the information when I was confronting my mother in the parking lot, but it was a shock to discover that I was still technically alive. I thought about it as I lay in bed that night. It simply changed everything. First of all, it meant that Katie's soul was still on Earth and that she was trapped by a coma inside my body, so I hadn't killed her. That was doubly good, because it meant that Katie wasn't a ghost and couldn't come haunt me like Bob had insinuated, which made his threats in general seem somewhat theatrical and negligible. Secondly, it meant that, should the need ever arise, though I couldn't possibly think what that need would be, I could return to my old life… assuming that I would be able to wake my body up through willpower alone…

Kendall, on the other hand, had been visiting my body a lot. Every day that we were at home in L.A., he would go to the hospital, even if it was just to spend a few minutes beside my body's stillness. His feelings for Citrine were something about which I could offer no conjecture, but I assumed that he had none. He just felt a connection with her because he brought her back to life on the ambulance and he wanted to see her get better. I also entertained the possibility that, on a subliminal level, Kendall sensed the trapped spirit of his sister within my body and was drawn to it. He didn't ever express concern at Katie's change in behavior when I entered her body, but I knew he noticed it. It may have been wishful thinking, but I actually thought that he might have enjoyed it. All the time we spent together, talking, watching TV, playing games, going to movies and parks, he did seem to enjoy it, though of course nowhere near as much as I did. It makes sense that he would be able to feel a deeper connection when talking to a young adult like him than to a child like Katie. Though, from what I heard, Katie was a very mature kid, there are some things that cannot be felt by children. I was always afraid that when I looked deep into Kendall's perfect green eyes, he would see the infinite love that I had for him in mine. But if he did, he never said so. He would tell me he loved me and I would say that I loved him too. But he wasn't talking to me. He was talking to Katie. That was hard to accept. There were many times when the urge to kiss him and hold him was almost unbearable, and I seriously considered making a move once or twice. There's only so much restraint that one girl can have! But I knew that he would never go for it. There's just a part of our biological code that keeps us from wanting to make out with our sisters. If making out with Kendall had been my goal, I had chosen the worst body on the entire planet to do it in. Even worse than the one I'd been in before! But Kendall would never have been my man as long as I was in my old hideous body, even if he would've made out with me before his sister. At least, as Katie, I got to be in his glorious presence. I considered perhaps revealing my true nature to him. I thought about telling him that I was Citrine and that I was desperately in love with him, but I quickly realized that that was the worst plan yet. He would've hated me for what I did to Katie and been totally creeped out by my masquerade. He probably would've tried to force me back into my old body. He certainly wouldn't have said "Oh awesome, that's hot, I'm totally okay with making out with my sister's body now that I know you're in it." So I held my tongue and writhed in quiet, anxious bliss.

Why did I never miss a sunrise? Every morning at sunrise I would slip out of my bed and creep over to Kendall's side to watch him sleep for an hour or two. It was my favorite time of day. When I first tried it, I just studied his face, listened to his breathing, indulged in his presence. But then I remembered that time in the limo, and then again on the steps of Rocque Records. When we had occupied the same space, it was a distinct pleasure unlike anything I'd ever felt before. The intimacy and depth of the way I'd felt him, and that smoldering aura that had warmed me like a roaring fire… I longed to feel them again. I longed for our souls to touch. I had no idea how to control my powers. All I knew was that, the more I felt in my heart, the stronger they were. So I opened my heart to the love that I felt for my brother and I dug down deep into the pit of my psyche to try to separate my astral form as I had before. I tried to stretch my silver cord so that I could escape physical form. You have to will yourself to be light, still, calm, just like floating in water, and your soul will rise to the surface. With a burst of desire, I could make it rise even farther, until my head was hitting the ceiling again. Then I could swim down to him and lay myself over his body without him feeling a thing. His warmth would fill me up and it was a feeling so addictive, so purely pleasurable that I never wanted it to end. But when I felt him stir, I would fall a million miles back into my body and creep back into bed so that he would never know. It was the emotion, the desire that was the catalyst for the separation, so I had to focus of his face and his breathing to make it happen, which made the activity very risky. But the risk only increased my pleasure. A couple of times, I managed to do it in my dreams, which was nice, but it was so much better when I was lucid, really hyper-lucid in a way, feeling and thinking everything on a much deeper level than when my soul was trapped in my brain and my skin forced to be separate from his.

I didn't really like being back at the Palm Woods. Kelly and Rebecca were going to spend the next two days planning the press-packed release party and Big Time Rush was just supposed to relax. Logan and Carlos seemed to have the hang of it, but they were the only two. I didn't like that I had to sleep alone in my own room. The absence of Mrs. Knight was poignant when half of our bedroom was still filled with her things in meticulous order, just as she'd unexpectedly left them. I longed to be able to play my spirit games with Kendall as before. It tortured me to know that we were both alone when we should be together like before. Besides that, I could barely sleep being back in the place where I'd killed Rose Bitters. There was a hectic energy about the whole place that made my powers unpredictable. Also, I couldn't close my eyes in that place, let alone sleep as long as Buddha Bob's energy lingered. I looked over my shoulder constantly for him. Certain parts of the hotel felt foreboding and I knew that he was lurking there. I just prayed that Rose didn't return to haunt me too. My life was a roller-coaster of paranoia and comfort, having the latter when I was with my brother and the former anytime else.

**Kendall's POV**

My sister and I grew closer in the weeks after our mother was put in jail than we had ever been before. She never seemed very affected by what had happened, but I figured she was just repressing it for her own sake and mine. We weren't going to survive if we felt everything at once. All the betrayal, the hurt, the emptiness would crush us if we allowed it to. So we didn't. We confided in each other and we went on with Hawk's relentless promotional tour. None of us would ever bond with Hawk the way that we had bonded with Gustavo, but on the flip side of that coin he was actually a much better manager than Gustavo had ever been. He was stern, but he didn't yell at us the way Gustavo had. He was very professional, but actually not as cold or humorless as we had thought him to be in the past when he was our enemy. It was expectable that Hawk would go to Kelly and ask to be Big Time Rush's new manager soon after Gustavo's death, and none of us blamed her for accepting his offer. If she hadn't, we would've been at Griffin's mercy, and that could've ended terribly. Hawk let us have our way most of the time, as long as it wasn't against our best interest. But he didn't babysit. He only talked to us when he needed to, usually in formal meetings, and he let Kelly and Rebecca do the micromanaging (Rebecca was present at nearly all times, specifically to represent Hawk's interests and opinions in every situation).

Despite the obvious success of our tour, as the number of pre-orders for BTR skyrocketed, I sunk into the worst depression during those weeks that I'd been in since my dad died. I didn't tell anyone the depth of pain that I was feeling. I didn't have time to. The once multicolored world was turning to shades of grey before my eyes. I was numb to the fame, the adoration, all the happiness that I should've been feeling. The fact that someone who we had trusted so much could destroy our lives, destroy the man that he called his best friend, the one that we all depended on, was something I couldn't wrap my head around. The fact that he had escaped and that the police still hadn't found him and probably never would made the sting even worse. The fact that none of us even knew why Freight Train had killed Gustavo pierced me to the core. It was hard to let go of that man. He had defined us. Losing him felt like losing my innocence all over again. It felt like losing my father all over again. I never thought I'd have to relive that pain. But to pile the revelation of James and my mother sleeping together on top of that… I had barely gotten to digest the horror. There was a line that should've never been crossed, and once it was, I could never see my mother in the same light again. She had always been an angel to me, the woman who had lifted Katie and I out of our father's ashes and raised us up with all the strength and patience of a saint. She never faltered for a moment. She did everything for my sister and me, including packing up everything to move to California when Big Time Rush was formed. She never even complained, despite never taking any indulgences for herself. Looking back, I suppose it was bound to happen. One day she had to snap. All of the desires that had been building up inside of her throughout all the years that she'd been focused on me and Katie but otherwise alone… they had built up into a powder keg. I just wish she'd chosen someone else. Someone that wasn't my best friend...

Because I didn't know how to forgive James for what he did. We'd been best friends for so many years. All those times that he came over to my house… my mom would make cookies and he would take one and say "Thanks, Mama K!" and we would run outside to practice our hockey moves. Looking back on those days knowing what I know now, having seen what's happened, it makes me sick. I would never have thought that he would have sex with my mom ten years later. Of course, I would never have thought that my dad would be dead and I didn't even know what sex was. But still, it hurt. It made me feel alone. Carlos and Logan, they were the same way. I remember the way the two of them would argue and fight about whether or not Logan had killed Carlos in Cowboys and Indians or whether or not Carlos had pushed Logan down on the ice. Ten years later, they were having sex too. It's just… it's like they were determined to taint all those happy memories. I couldn't help but think that moving to California had ruined them all somehow. Kind of like Hollywood fever, but nothing that Dr. Hollywood could cure. This fever is a lifelong illness; I guess you could say a fatal one. It's called adulthood, something that had crept upon us slowly. I wasn't sure that I was ready to succumb to it yet. Maybe that's why I'd been spending so much time with Katie. I just wanted to hold onto her and all her simplicity and honesty, things that were all but lost on everyone else around us. She helped me to not feel so alone. At that time, when everything had started to fall apart, I started to wish that I'd never even gone to audition for Gustavo. I wished that I'd never asked him to bring my friends with me to California. I dreamed that maybe, if we had all just stayed in Minnesota, things would have been okay. We would all just be friends. No sex, no murder, no blackmail, no cover-ups, no lies, no broken hearts, no police stations or hospitals or funeral homes or prison cells or courtrooms. Just our old backyard with the decrepit picket fence that my dad built when my mom was pregnant with me, that by the time we left was basically useless. But we could never tear it down, and everyone knew why. I would have traded all the money, all the fans, all the "dreams come true" to just be normal again. Just to have my mom be just a mom, my friends be just friends, my house be a home and to get rid of that emptiness inside me that just wouldn't go away.

**Freight Train's POV**

Snow at the end of August. I've lived a good, long life and I've never seen a night quite as strange as that one was. Strange that I had a smile on my face as I stumbled and trudged down the street away from the police station because the love of my life had just confessed that she'd never fallen out of love with me and that she'd be waiting for me as soon as the false murder charges against me were dropped. I was smiling because she'd helped me escape and because she was going to single-handedly bring Gustavo's true murderer to justice and that proved that she loved me. I smiled because two feet of snow at the end of August wasn't the strangest thing about that night. I smiled because it was still coming down and I knew that anything was possible. It was even possible that I could survive on the streets when the thermometer was stuck in the twenties. Hell, I had plenty of blubber. I just needed to find the warmest place where the least snow had fallen and where there was the greatest shelter from the arctic winds coming in from the north. Then I would wrap myself up in my lady's love and curl into myself and the nearest solid object like a hedgehog. The procedure was no new concept to me. Kelly and I had spent most of our life as a couple essentially homeless, relying on each other's quick wits and opportunistic savvy, making it day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute, second-to-second. I wasn't lying when I said that, if I could go back, I would have raised our baby with Kelly when it was born in order for us to stay together, but there was still reason for me to be glad that that hadn't happened. Her life really would've been hard, no matter how much we loved her.

I found the highway and started walking along it aimlessly, just willing the night to show me the path that I was meant to take. I found lots of places where I could've stayed the night, but I wanted to find somewhere that the police wouldn't look so that I could sleep soundly. I was going under an overpass when I noticed a peculiar cage underneath the stairs going upward that looked as if not much snow had fallen into it. I went over to the staircase and looked for some way to get under it, but saw that there wasn't one except the little spaces between the steps. It's not always better to be bigger. I was about to move on when I heard a door opening from inside the cage and a little voice crying out.

"Help! Is someone out there? I'm very hungry and cold! I would like some food! Please help me out of here!"

A shadowy figure held the door open as she crawled out from inside and into the cage and looked up at me pleadingly. I couldn't believe that someone would leave a little girl trapped under an overpass. I had no choice but to help her, so I told her to crawl over to the stairs and I stuck my arms down between the steps. When she was between my hands, I picked her up easily and lifted her out through the space, telling her to be careful not to bump her head. She was woefully thin and dirty, and I could tell she had been homeless for quite a while. She told me that she couldn't walk on her own, so I carried her away to a convenience store where I bought as many high-fat, high-sugar snacks as my pocket change could pay for and gave them all to her. She had finished them all before we found a suitable alley for sleeping. When the morning came, I told her my name and she told me hers. Neither of us had anyone else to take care of us or anywhere else to go. And so a friendship began. Peridot and I survived the next seven weeks together. I grew to love and understand her and she latched onto me quickly like all children do. Sometimes, when she would look at me with childish love in her eyes, they looked just like Kelly's used to when we were kids. It made me yearn for the child that we'd lost. I promised Peridot that, if everything turned out okay, she could come and live with Kelly and I. It seemed like good karma for us to take her in, considering that she was the same age that Julia was, somewhere else in the country, maybe even somewhere else in L.A. She was a very lovable child. I wanted the three of us to be a family, and Peridot wanted that even more. She would help heal the scar tissue between Kelly and me, I hoped. It was as if God had put her in my path to fill the space that Julia had left, and I had been likewise put in hers to fill the space that all her previous abandoning guardians had left in her poor little heart. A night for disasters, it had been, and a night for miracles as well. A very strange night indeed.


	21. Chapter 21

**Kendall's POV**

It was October 11th, the day that our first album was set to release. Knowing that it wouldn't be long before everyone else was up and scrambling around, doing all sorts of things to prepare for the big release party that was planned for that night and wanting me to do such things with them, I ducked out of Apartment 2J before sunrise and made my way to the only place I wanted to be. I went to the hospital, stopping by the flower shop on the way just as they were opening, and replaced the wilted lilies next to Citrine's bed with fresh pink roses. Every time I looked at her, I was taken back to that night. She was our waitress at the Glory Panda the night that Buddha Bob was murdered by Bitters. The coincidence didn't escape me. In fact, it drove me insane. I remembered her delicate smile, her smooth, rich voice, her timidity and the volatile elixir of fear and longing swirling deep inside of her eyes. If only I'd known she was homeless! She didn't look the part at all. If only I'd asked her where she was going, if only I'd offered her a ride home, if only, if only, if only she'd let on that her life was this close to going boom, she wouldn't have gotten mixed up with Bitters and she wouldn't be in a coma. Then, maybe, if only… who knows, we might have been friends. Or more than friends. Or anything.

Well, I suppose I ought to address the elephant on the page. Citrine was biologically male, and so was I. So apparently, just because I'm straight, I'm expected to be blind to any beauty that the same sex has to offer. It really didn't change much when I found out that Citrine had the body of a man. All the soulful elegance of her aura was the same. What I saw in her was the same. I saw what she felt, which was that her essence, her spirit, her je ne sais quoi was no less feminine than any other girl I'd ever pursued. Let's be honest! When I fall in love with a girl, I don't fall in love with her vagina or her breasts. I fall in love with her heart, and Citrine's heart was just as pretty, pink and sweet as the roses I'd bought for her. So go ahead, give me the medal for least shallow man in the universe. I'd take it, but no mass of gold would be worth as much as that girl waking up and saying my name would have been to me. That's all I wanted.

I should've been excited, ecstatic even. BTR was finally hitting the shelves. It seemed as unreal as everything else that was happening to me. With as lucky as I was to be getting the opportunity, with as bright as my future seemed, with as much as any other teenager on Earth would have killed to be in my shoes, climbing the iTunes charts, gracing the cover of half a dozen teen rags, bathing in second-rate TV appearances and getting paid to do what I loved more than anything, I simply had no joy to give on that chilly October day. So I sat down beside Citrine and I held her hand. We had something in common, her and me. Both of our lives had gone to shit, and neither of us had done a damn thing wrong to deserve it. Because every time I looked at her, I was taken back to that night when my mom ruined everything. My mom… she'd been leaving messages on my cell phone from the payphone at the jailhouse for weeks, but I'd never listened to a one of them. Well, I was sorry to leave Citrine, but seeing as she would never know whether I was there or not, or when, or when not, I figured it wasn't so mean. One of the great things about her company was that I could come and go as I pleased, no apologies, no explanations. Another great thing was the silence. I would sit with my eyes closed and listen to the beeping of her heart monitor, willing her to wake up, but never expecting a thing. That day when I left her, I could've sworn that I saw a tear roll down her cheek as our fingers untangled. It made me sad, but I felt that I needed to see my mother, to sort some things out, and sooner was better than later.

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

Seven weeks in jail will sober an old girl up. Every day, they asked me if I wanted to use the phone, and they were very nice about it in fact. Every day I said yes. Sometimes I called Kendall, other times Katie, and sometimes James if I was feeling really lonely. None of them ever answered, of course. But it was comforting to hear it ring. Once… twice… thrice… a couple more times, then their answering machines would pick up.

_Hello, you've reached Kendall Knight's cell phone. If you'd like to speak to me personally, please leave a message and I'll return your call. If you have a business inquiry, contact my manager Gustavo Rocque at…_

He hadn't changed it since Gustavo died. A wave of guilt washed over me when I heard the name. I'd framed that man's bodyguard for his murder and protected that bastard Hawk in the process. Sometimes, when I couldn't sleep and had all night just to think about what I'd done, I wondered how I'd come to be such a scoundrel. I wondered if I would ever do well again.

_Hi, this is Katie Knight's phone! You seem to have missed me, which means that I'm probably watching Judge Judy or taking a nap! Please don't leave a message! I'll call you back eventually! Okay, thanks, bye!_

My little girl. She's what kept me crying all the time. I just wish I had the chance to tell her how sorry I was, but I knew it was too late. I'd already ruined her life, and it was all so wrong and terrible when I thought about it that it made my brain ache and my eyes well up with fiery hot tears. She was so young when Kyle died. Since then we'd been each other's everything every day. I couldn't remember the last time we were separated, and now seven weeks apart and she didn't even answer me on the phone. It drove me up the walls, not knowing how she was doing or who was taking care of her. I'd put nine years of my soul into that girl, and one night of James putting his apparatus into me just blew it all to Hell. It was like a classless soap opera, and I was the character that everyone loved to hate. I had to accept the possibility that I'd never hold her in my arms again.

_Hey, thanks for calling the official cell phone of James Diamond, lead singer of the fabulously popular musical group Big Time Rush. Leave a message and I'll call you back. Unless you're a rabid fangirl, in which case you should try my other number, 1-800-GET-REAL._

Oh James. I didn't know whether to love him or hate him. The truth was that I had a lot more on my mind than just the possibility of my children never forgiving me for abandoning them if I was sent to prison. There was a new issue, one which weighed heavily on my thoughts. Something had to be done about it. It couldn't be ignored. It might've even been my only hope of avoiding prison time at my trial, and I needed to talk to James about it more than anything. But I knew there was no chance of getting him to visit me. I didn't see why. Of all people, I thought he would've felt most obligated to make an appearance, considering we'd both done the crime and I was the only one doing the time. I guess he was too ashamed, or maybe he didn't want to make it seem like there was anything meaningful between us for the sake of my acquittal. If he hadn't been such a pussyfooted lightweight with our big secret, everything would've turned out fine. But for some reason, I just couldn't bring myself to be angry with him for telling. The truth is I saw it coming from a mile away. He was just a boy. That was the whole point.

Then, five days before my trial was set to begin, my son appeared on the other side of the bars of my cell. He was my first visitor. Suddenly, looking into his eyes, it was like seven weeks had passed in an instant, and none of it had ever happened. But the cold tone of his words brought me back to reality.

"How are you?" he asked unsympathetically.

"Well, y'know, getting along. There's no reason to worry about me Kenny, but you're sweet for—"

"Good. Can I talk to you about something?" he pulled a chair over from the corner and sat down in the hallway facing me. He was all business. It must have been satisfying for him to torture me by giving me none of the information that he knew I was starved for about the goings-on at home.

"Sure, sweetie… I'm all ears." I sat down on my bed, trying not to cry happily for not being alone.

"Did you kill Gustavo?"

I stopped mid-breath and stared at him. It was a stone-faced delivery. He obviously didn't care how the question made me feel. He obviously had no faith left in me after what I'd been arrested for. "Kendall… why would you… no, I didn't. Of course I didn't! Freight Train did it! He was charged and escaped. Why would he have run if he wasn't guilty? Besides, I had no motive—"

"I don't believe that Freight Train did it. Something happened between him and Gustavo on the day he was murdered. Freight Train caught Gustavo attacking Kelly. They had a fight and Gustavo fired him. So yeah, it seems to make sense. But I don't believe it. I saw him with Kelly at the hospital. He seemed genuinely surprised that Gustavo was dead. You didn't. She found your earring in his room and she's still sure that you did it. You know what else? Kelly told me that she talked to Det. Simms, and it turns out that they tested the life support cord from Gustavo's room for fingerprints."

"…they did?"

"Yeah, and whose do you think they found?"

"I don't know. Freight Train's, presumably."

"They found Freight Train's, and Hawk's, and _yours_. Mom, I've had plenty of reasons to doubt Hawk's trustworthiness in the past, but I know him now. He's a better man than we thought, and he wouldn't have killed Gustavo over their rivalry, no matter how heated it got. As for Freight Train, he's the most honorable, dependable person I've ever known. He's not a murderer. As for you…" his eyes narrowed and he took them off of mine to scowl at the ground. "…I'm not sure."

"Honey, I know you're angry with me over what happened with James, of course you are, but don't go taking me for a murderer! I'd never do it… and there wasn't any reason for me to, anyway…" I trailed off and I could tell that all my stuttering and pausing was only affirming his suspicions.

"See though, I thought this all through while I was sitting in Citrine's hospital room this morning. What if Gustavo saw you and James together… what if he somehow found out your secret? You'd have killed him for that, wouldn't you have? To keep me and Katie from losing you if you went to prison, you'd have killed anyone… and now that's happening anyway. Then, I'm guessing you made up everything you said about Freight Train to Det. Simms that led to him being arrested, and you probably got Hawk to make shit up too to protect himself from harm when it came to light that his hands weren't clean, either. How am I doing so far?"

His eyes stabbed into me and I started to cry. I didn't know what to say. I was so damn tired of lying. I wasn't sure I could lie to my own son, to his face, when he had just spoken almost all the truth, and when I was the cause of almost all his problems. I just couldn't bring myself. So he took my silence as a positive answer. After a long pause, he spoke again, with a pathetically forced pleasantness.

"The album is coming out today. I don't know if you're keeping track of what day it is but… it's the eleventh. It came fast, didn't it?" he looked at me again. I was still trying my hardest not to cry. I was a grown woman, after all, and it wasn't my place to be crying all the time over my own sins.

"How's Katie?" I asked in a pleading way, hungry for any modicum of comfort.

He frowned and I saw his eyes get wet too. He choked a little, and then stood up angrily. He pushed the chair back into the corner and said, "You should ask her yourself."

"Kendall, please! I tried! I've tried calling all of you! Just tell me she's okay. Tell me you're all okay without me and you'll be giving your mother an immeasurable gift!" I put my hands on the bars and tried to catch his gaze again, but he was standing at the door of the cellblock.

"I'm not sure I want my little sister talking to a murderer. She needs a lot of love right now, but the kind that you have to offer has no place in any of our lives. It's too…poisonous. Goodbye…mom."

**Freight Train's POV**

After seven weeks of paranoia and homelessness, I would've killed for a shower and a cup of tea. I only wished there was some way for me to talk to Kelly, to see how things were coming along with her exoneration efforts. But I didn't let on that I was starting to lose faith, because I knew that Peridot was counting on me. Not just to keep the morale high for both of us, but for everything else too. It was terrifying, at first. Peridot's weight as I carried her on my shoulders was like the world with all her pure, contagious love to boot. But then I sort of slipped into it, becoming the parent that I always should've been. Then it was the most comforting thing in the world. The way she held onto my arm (which she seemed to barely be able to get her arms around, the size difference between us being cartoonishly extreme) for dear life as she slept soundly and without complaint, whether we were sleeping in an alley or a ditch or an abandoned house if we were lucky, gave a rainbow of new shades of purpose and meaning to my life. Nine years, almost a decade of my life I had wasted without love. Almost a decade of my life was as good as trash when I'd only been caring for myself and going through the motions. I'd have given the rest of my life away, too, if it was the only way to spend just one day with Kelly and the child we lost.

One day (how the Hell was I to know what opinion the calendar had of it), when we'd just got done stealing some canned beans from the soup kitchen and were resting in an overgrown parking lot beside a derelict grocery store to eat them, Peridot spoke up out of the blue.

"Percy, I think tomorrow's my birthday." She didn't look up, just kept poking her spoon into the can.

"Really? How do you know?"

"I've been counting the days since Citrine left. If I counted them right then tomorrow's the twelfth of October and that's when Mama and me always celebrated my birthday."

"Alright, well that's great! We could use an occasion to celebrate. I suppose you'll want some cake?"

"Cake? Why? I don't like cake that much. It's awfully dry in my mouth."

"But that's what children do on their birthdays; they get cake and presents and a party. Didn't your mama ever give you those sorts of things on your birthday?"

"No… no I don't remember any cake or presents or parties. It seems like it's been forever since she died, but I do remember the last birthday I had with her. We sat in the parlor and watched her brand new TV. Well, it was brand new to us but I think she got it at some flea market for a good price. It didn't show no color on the screen and she had to pull and bend and wrangle with the metal sticks on top of it to find the Wheel of Fortune, but she found it and I got to sit on her lap and drink my lemonade and watch television and that was the best time I'd ever had. She made some popcorn, which was always a treat as I remember it, though I haven't had any since. Then we sat at the table and played cards. I'm not sure what else we did that day but I get a nice warm feeling when I remember it. Mama was a real lady…" she trailed off and wiped her eyes with her arm. "…she'll always be a real lady to me… even if nobody else remembers her at all… she's my mama for sure… forever…"

"Peridot, honey don't cry." I picked her up and she hugged me, and she cried into my shoulder, and I didn't have to ask why. I just hoped she didn't notice that I was crying too. After a while, I set her back down and she went back to picking at her beans. I lifted her chin gently up to look at me, which she generally didn't do because she was so shy and avoidant, and we saw each other through common tears. "I lost my mama too. I was considerably older than you. I was pretty near grown, in fact. She fell down the stairs in our house when I was supposed to be there with her. But I wasn't, and I've lived with that every day since. It was my fault. I know what it's like, honey, to watch the best lady you've ever known die. It hurts in a place you can't touch. It never leaves you alone. But, Perry darling, you have to believe me… I'll never leave you alone either. We'll be together for as long as you need me, until you can walk on your own two feet… in so many words."

I smiled as best as I could and she smiled too, but she couldn't think of anything good to say in return so we just ate in silence for a while longer. Then, when we were done and getting ready to move on so as not to leave our scent too strong in any one place, she spoke up again, and I could tell it took a lot of effort.

"I want to go back."

"Where? Back to the overpass? It's very far away by now and too close to the police station for comfort."

"No, not the overpass! I'll be happy if I never go back there in my life! I want to go back to the place where I spent my last birthday with Mama. I was just thinking about it and I remembered all of the sudden that we weren't in her apartment. We were somewhere else. We were in the old house in the country where she said she lived when she was a little girl like me. She took me there when we got locked out of the apartment and had nowhere to go, and that's where we stayed through my birthday, until we went to the homeless shelter, where she… where she left me alone."

She looked at me solemnly and I could tell that this was what she really wanted. "Alright child, if that's your only birthday wish then I'll be more than happy to oblige. Do you have any idea where in the country this old house is?"

She thought for a moment, and then jumped a little like an idea had come up into her from underground. "I have a letter! An old letter that we got when we were living there, which I could never read, but I know for sure that it must have the address on it because all letters have to have the address where they're going on the front, don't they? So you can read it for me and find out where we lived!"

"Where's the letter at? Do you have it with you or is it at…" I stopped and she nodded.

"It's still under the overpass."

**Citrine's POV**

"It won't be easy… you'll think it strange… when I try to explain how I feel…" I sung quietly into the bathroom mirror as I brushed my long, brown hair and then started to take the straightening iron to it. Logan and Carlos had left before I got up, probably for some important album-launching meeting at Hawk Records, and I was alone in Apartment 2J with my thoughts, which seemed to fit perfectly with that song. I was singing about Kendall, and James, and Peridot, and my mom and even my old body, which I had started to regard finally as another person after seven weeks in Katie's body. Citrine seemed like an old friend who I'd parted with on good terms, but I still missed her sometimes.

"…that I still need your love after all that I've done." I finished straightening my hair, put the iron down and looked at Katie in the mirror for a few minutes. Feeling like I was about to cry for some enigmatic reason, I left the bathroom with her hairbrush and went center stage in the living room, standing up on the coffee table and singing at full volume into the pink hairy microphone.

"You won't believe me. All you will see is a girl you once knew, although she's dressed up to the nines at sixes and sevens with you." I gulped and got a clear picture in my mind's eye. Kendall was sitting beside my old body. He'd bought pink roses just to put beside it. He was talking to it. He was holding its hand. I saw my own face. I saw a tear roll down its cheek. Trying to shake it out of my head, I sung louder still.

"I had to let it happen! I had to change! I couldn't stay all my life down at heel, looking out of the window, staying out of the sun! So I chose **freedom**! Running around, trying everything new!" I knew it wasn't my imagination. It was real, a vision, of the past or the future or of anytime, but it was real. Kendall was falling in love with me. The only problem was that I'd jumped ship too soon, and now I was stuck in a body that he could never love, with no way to tell him how I felt. I knew it would happen this way. I knew karma was coming for me; this was my much-deserved poetic justice. I'd gotten everything I ever wanted, but cut myself off from the one thing I needed to survive. "But nothing impressed me at all… I never expected it to." Being Katie was supposed to be perfect. But what was so great about it? Wasn't I the same basket case Citrine that I'd always been, screwing up every chance I got? What the Hell had I accomplished?

"Don't cry for me, darling Citrine! The truth is I never left you! All through my wild days, my mad existence, I kept my promise! Don't keep your distance." I saw it all so clearly now. In order to have true love, I just had to be myself! It was the last thing I ever expected, but it made me even happier than stealing Katie's body ever would've! I was about to get down from the table when a voice behind me picked up where I'd left off.

"And as for fortune and as for fame… I never invited them in, though it seemed to the world they were all I desired." I turned around and saw Kendall standing at the door. He closed it behind him. "They are illusions. They are not the solutions they promise to be." His singing was beautiful and heartfelt, and it made me feel weak but alive.

"The answer was here all the time." I sang back.

"I love you and hope you love me." he finished. He walked over to me and lifted me down off the table. As we stared into each other's eyes for a moment, I was sure that he knew who I really was, and that we were about to make sweet love. But he just blinked and sat down on the couch, running his hand through his hair. The moment was gone and neither of us were sure what to make of it.

"Kendall…" I finally said, sitting down next to him, "I'm surprised. I didn't realize you were an Evita junkie like me."

He chuckled and shook his head. "I'm really not. But Carlos and Logan listen to nothing but show tunes 24/7 and they've somehow pervaded my subconscious. It's a little scary." He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and smiled a little. I could tell he had something big on his mind; something that he thought was too big to talk to an almost nine-year-old about. "I didn't realize you were such a good singer. You must only do that when no one's around. Your voice, it gets kind of… low… and warbly… where did you learn that?"

I shrugged and swallowed hard with a dry throat. "Oh, y'know, I take pages from the books of great divas and such things. Cher, Barbra, Liza, all the greats. Gotta do something to fill the time."

He squinted at me and laughed. "My God, I'm starting to think that I'm living with three gay men instead of just two!" He got up and went over to the kitchen. He reached down under the fridge and pulled out a little key, then put it into a padlock that was hanging from the handles on the cabinets above the fridge. Unlocking it, he set it aside and opened up the cabinets. They were full of booze!

"Hey Kendall, what're you doing?" I asked, climbing one of the barstools to get a good look.

"I need a drink." He said matter-of-factly, taking down a bottle of vodka.

"Wow. I didn't know mom was such a heavy drinker. When does she find the time?"

"Who knows? Who cares? She'll probably never come back to finish these bottles off anyway. We might as well drink to our freedom—as long as we've got it. That's what she'd do." He got a plastic cup and filled it one-fourth up with vodka, then got a can of Mountain Dew out of the fridge and poured it in too, stirring the cocktail up with his finger and licking it.

"Ew." I scrunched my nose up at the smell of it.

"You'll understand when you're older." He said, patted me on the head, and then chugged the whole drink without taking a breath.

"You're gonna get drunk now? It's not even noon. Shouldn't you be at Hawk Records with the rest of the band talking about the album release with the party and the press?"

"Yup, I guess I should." He put his hands on his hips, nodded for a few seconds, sighed, and then started mixing another drink. I watched him as he downed another Dew-driver.

"Kendall… what's wrong? Why don't you care about the launch? What happened?"

He put his back to the fridge, and then slid down it until his butt hit the linoleum. I tried to avoid going in the kitchen whenever I could. Every time I looked at that floor I was reminded of Rose's blood, and how it filled in the crevices of the linoleum around the ice machine and dried rusty brown, and how it smelled, and how it was everywhere. Unfortunately, going in the kitchen made me want to throw up, but I went in anyway and sat down beside him. I put my hand on his knee where his jeans were ripped on purpose, touching, feeling the bare skin boldly. "Kendall." I murmured, "Tell me."

He sniffled, just once, so I knew he was sucking it up to talk to me. He stared at the floor while he told me. "I visited mom in jail this morning. She asked how you were. I didn't tell her."

"Why not?" I asked sympathetically. I felt something bigger coming.

"Well, basically she admitted to killing Gustavo. But there's no proof, and she wouldn't admit it in court if it came to that. _When _it comes to that, she'll get on the stand with Hawk and they'll both lie—to put Freight Train away forever."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This whole thing was seven more layers of fucked up than I'd expected.

"She's changed, Katie. I couldn't talk to her about you anymore, or about the band, like I did seven weeks ago, like she's still our mom. Something's missing between us; something's missing in her eyes that used to make me feel okay. Now it just makes me sick. I don't think we'll ever be okay again—the three of us. Something's ended. I think it could be… childhood? We can't really be kids anymore if our mom is in prison. I'll have to raise you from now on—that's the way it'll be. I'm not sure we can even afford to worry about her from now on."

He punched the floor, suddenly, forcefully, then slid his hands down his face and moaned. "I can't do it anymore Katie! Every time I see James, I just want to strangle him, then beat his head against a brick wall, then run him through a wood chipper! And Carlos and Logan, they're so happy together, while all this shit is happening to us and the whole world is going to Hell! Then there's Kelly, who never stops talking about mom, every day, and how she killed Gustavo, and how she's found some new way to prove it, and how it won't be long before Freight Train's exonerated! Katie, it's just like the song said! Fame and fortune don't solve anything! They're worthless without love and happiness! The answer is here, you and me, that's all we need!"

"Kendall, what're you saying?"

"I'm saying it's too much! How can I go to that party tonight and celebrate BTR when the whole record is drenched in Gustavo's blood? We wrote and recorded every song together, the six of us, Big Time Rush, Kelly and Gustavo, and he was the most important one! _That _was the best time of my life; this is the worst! At that party tonight, everyone's going to be smiling, and laughing and acting like Gustavo never even existed! But he did; he was the soul of Big Time Rush, and I'm finally realizing that it can't go on without him! I can't promote this album for Hawk Records. It's everything Gustavo would've never wanted, and if our mother is responsible for his death, the least I can do is stand up for his honor, one last time."

"You mean… you can't mean you're going to—"

"Katie, I'm quitting the band."


	22. Chapter 22

**Kelly's POV**

_Oh… It's gonna be a big night_

_We're gonna have a good time_

_It's gonna be a big, big, big, big, big, big night_

I smiled as I pressed play on the stereo system and the music started. I'd almost forgotten to bring the BTR Megamix CD for the launch party, but what kind of party would it have been without it? Indeed, it was going to be a big night for everyone, and everything was going to go exactly as planned… or so I thought. Rebecca and I had been planning for that night for a week, inviting all the A-list guests, ordering all the A-list food, and decorating all the A-list furniture in the A-list ballroom at the A-list hotel. Over the entrance hung a huge banner that read: **WELCOME TO THE BIG TIME! **What could go wrong? It was surely going to be a night to remember, perhaps the best night of our lives! Just as I was smiling to myself and thinking all these positive things, in comes James, two hours early, brooding as ominously as the dense white clouds that'd been hanging around all day.

"James! Long time no see. How are you?" I regretted the tone of pity in my voice, because I knew he wouldn't appreciate it.

"Great, Kelly. Just fabulous." He sat down at the table that I was adorning with random corsages and disinterestedly scrolled through his Twitter page on his Android. I sat down next to him and tried to think of something positive to say.

"Looks like it might snow." _Shit, no! Why did I say that? The last time it snowed was that freak storm on the night that Gustavo died. I couldn't have said anything worse!_

"Yeah," he answered without looking up, "wouldn't that be the icing on the cake? I have to sit through this whole meaningless ceremony in honor of Big Time Rush, the band in which James Diamond went from being the poster boy to being the black sheep, then drudge through three inches of snow to get home. Sounds perfect."

"You mean you walked here?"

"Sure, my hotel's just down the street from this one." He shot a little begrudged glare at me and I shrank back some.

"When was the last time you talked to the guys?" I knew I shouldn't have said that either, but it just fell out; I was so morbidly curious about their big time drama I couldn't help myself.

He stopped scrolling through his tweets and I saw his jaw move around under his skin. He was thinking, deciding whether to answer honestly or just explode out of rage. He chose the former. "If you mean 'When was the last time I had a real conversation with one of them?', it was that night at the police station when Freight Train was arrested and escaped. In between questionings, we all sat together and talked and confided in each other… we'd never been closer friends than at a time like that. Then Det. Simms tricked me, and everyone found out, and my life… hit the fan…" he looked at me askance through his overgrown bangs and I saw the thought form in his mind. "How _did _Freight Train escape, anyway? You were there… in the same room, for assaulting Kristen at the hospital. They let you out after a few hours because she had no intention of pressing charges against you, but not before Freight Train was long gone. So how'd it happen?"

I held his gaze for a moment, then figured he deserved the truth, but not without something in return! "I'll make a deal with you James, but only because I trust you enough to believe that you'll honor it. I've lied to everyone else and said that I had no part in Percy's escape. I'll tell you what really happened if you tell me what really happened with Mrs. Knight on the night that Bitters killed Buddha Bob first."

He shrugged. "Sure, it's a deal. I've got nothing to hide. You were there, when it started. You were there when it all started at the Glory Panda. Kristen read her fortune out loud and it was the same as mine. Then she looked up at me. Something happened when our eyes met. It was like love at first sight, except I've known her all my life. Something _changed_. I've tossed and turned for countless hours since, never sleeping soundly, always dreaming of her as soon as my eyes closed. I've tried to rationalize it, to figure out what it all _really _meant, but it makes no sense! When I look back on my life now, it feels like I've always loved her. My old memories of riding home from school in her minivan are suddenly tinted pink and tense, like every time our hands touched there was something there, that same thing that happened across the table seven weeks ago, but there wasn't! I know there wasn't, because I never thought about her like that until seven weeks ago. Something happened in my head, like I got all rewired when it comes to Kristen, like someone wants me to _think_ that I'm in love with her, even though I'm really not!"

He was really talking to me now, opening up, and I could see how stressed and confused and alone he felt. There was weepiness in his voice as he rambled on about Mrs. Knight. Whatever it was between them, it was a lot more complicated than a menopausal cradle-robbing predatory widow cougar MILF converging with a frenzied horny hormonal hunk of teenage heartthrob jailbait and reacting at a molecular level. I just wasn't sure that James was enough in his right mind to explain it to me.

"James… I'd love to call bullshit here, because you really sound like you've been making love to your bong more than anything else, but I think I've known you long enough to tell when you're being honest, which isn't very often, and this is one of those times. So, whatever you're trying to say, I believe you." He sighed deeply and propped his head up on the table with his arm, running his hand over and over his face and looking like he had a terrible headache. "Hey." I urged, taking the phone out of his other hand and replacing it with my hand, squeezing reassuringly. "Finish; you'll feel better. Don't be afraid to ramble if it won't come out simply."

He smiled a little, put his other hand on top of mine on top of his, and then went on, though he had to stare at the perfectly pressed tablecloth to get certain parts out. "Well, after the weirdness between us happened, Kristen got upset and left, and I followed her outside. When we talked out there, it was like I was talking to her for the first time. As Kendall's mom, none of our conversations had ever really had meaning; she'd never really shown herself to me. But there, I saw her for real, and I felt what she felt, and I realized that nothing really changes when people get older. Nothing about a girl changes when she has kids, or gets married or dedicates her life to everyone but herself… not in her heart anyway. Kristen wanted the things that I wanted; somewhere deep inside, she wanted to have fun, to be young again, and she wanted me… and I wanted to give it all to her."

"So you decided to leave together and go fool around at the apartment before anyone else got home? And it only happened just that once?"

"Well… yeah. We didn't originally intend on having sex that night. We knew it was wrong. All we wanted to do was go out to a bar, y'know, have some drinks, have some fun, and nobody else ever needed to know! That's all we meant to happen. But we ended up back at the Palm Woods, and it was karaoke night, and she got up and sang that Katy Perry song, with our eyes locked the whole time, and that feeling just got stronger and stronger and…!"

He didn't need to finish. Animal attraction isn't some mystery to me or anyone else with fully functioning sexual organs. "Okay, I get it. It only happened once. It was a mistake. No one was ever supposed to know."

There was an awkward silence then, which was only broken by James finally asking, "So how did Freight Train escape the police station that night?"

I looked him in the eye, took a deep breath and blurted it out. "I helped him."

"I knew it!"

"Yeah, yeah, don't wet yourself. It wasn't that daring. I just lured the guard over to our cells so that Percy could knock him out and take his keys. Standard procedure for a Bond girl like me." I batted my eyelashes delicately and James laughed. Then he turned serious after a moment.

"There was something between you two, wasn't there? I mean, as Gustavo's right and left hands of course you shared a special bond, but it always seemed like the air was charged when you two were in the room together, and he'd shoot you weird looks, and you'd look away, or leave the room with some lame excuse. Don't tell me I imagined it."

"Jeez! Was it that obvious? Yeah, I mean it was kind of a big secret ever since I came to work for Gustavo a couple of years ago, because we didn't think he'd like us working together if he knew, but Percy and I… we were in love. In fact, we still are, after all these years, and he's not dead so I don't appreciate you employing the past tense when talking about him."

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it… but y'know James, that's not why I helped him escape. Don't get me wrong; I love him and I want us to be together, but sending him out as a fugitive didn't get me any closer to that end. I helped him escape because he's innocent. Freight Train didn't kill Gustavo, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let anyone but the real killer go to prison for it. I don't want to come down too hard on you, James, now that I see that you really care about Mrs. Knight, but I know she killed Gustavo. That's just the way it is."

"No!" he spat, shaking his head and taking his hand away from mine. "You can't really believe that Kelly! Why? Why would she? Why would she—" he stopped suddenly, so I jumped in.

"I found her earring in the hospital room, James! Then, when I came back to show Kendall and Gina, the earring was gone and the plug was back in the wall. Obviously Mrs. Knight wouldn't have done those things if she wasn't trying to undo her mistake! Out of the three people that visited him before he died, she's the only one I can imagine doing it!" Just then, my cell phone vibrated and I saw that Kendall was calling me. "James, wait one second okay?" I got up and took a few steps away to answer. "Hello?"

"Kelly! Can you talk?" he sounded desperate.

"Sure, what's up?"

"I went to visit my mom this morning."

"Oh… well is she alright?"

"Don't worry about her; she's obviously a survivor! The point is, you were right."

"You mean she—"

"She admitted to killing Gustavo! It was her! And can you guess why she did it?"

Suddenly, it dawned on me, and I understood everything. "He saw her with James the night before."

"Right! She killed him to protect her secret. All in vain, of course—but there it is."

"So that's why they went back to the Palm Woods. They were scared of being seen again."

"What do you mean? It sounds like you know more than I do."

"Sorry Kendall, I have to go! Thanks for the update—"

"Wait! That's not all. You know how Hawk's fingerprints were on the power cord along with my mom's and Freight Train's?"

"Yeah…"

"He lied to frame Freight Train for the whole thing. They both did—they were working together. His hands are dirtier than we thought… I'm just not sure why."

I was stunned into silence. I felt my mouth thank Kendall and then I felt my finger hang up on him, even as my ear tried to tell me that he was still saying something important. My head was spinning. I suddenly saw everything start to fall into place, and the direction that it was all heading in was more than terrifying. I had to talk to James. I went over to him, and was about to start when he cut me off.

"Kelly, I just thought of something. I think I know why Kristen might have killed Gustavo. The night before he died, when we were on our way to the club, we pulled up next to the limo at a stoplight. Gustavo was driving, and he looked over and saw us together—or at least we thought he did. What if he woke up while she was in there and told her he knew about us? What might she have done?"

I looked at him sorrowfully. "James, she mightn't have done anything. She _did _kill Gustavo. She admitted it to Kendall this morning. Now all the pieces have fallen into place and—"

"No…" he shook his head again and stood up defiantly. "No, I can't let it happen this way! I have to go talk to her myself! I have to hear it from her own mouth if I'm going to believe she killed him." He picked up his jacket off his chair and charged for the door.

"James! What about the party? Are you coming back?"

"Screw the party! Screw Big Time Rush! None of them want me in the band anymore anyway! I thought they hated me before for being the reason Kristen's in jail, but now I'm the reason Gustavo's dead too? They'll never forgive me! I'm on my way out of it all, don't you see? They've been elbowing me farther and farther away from the band for weeks, and it won't be long before they're looking for a new fourth member. The rest of them might be able to get through this, but no—not me. I'm out."

With that, he turned back around and threw the doors open, leaving the ballroom echoing with one of the most dramatic exit monologues I'd ever heard.

**James' POV**

I called a cab to take me to the police station where Kristen was still awaiting her trial in a cold, lonely cell. I couldn't imagine what seven weeks of solitude had done to her sanity. All at once I felt guilty for not having visited her before. Can you imagine? After everything, I was still on her side. I still loved her, somehow. I would still do anything to keep her from going to prison. That was something I hadn't admitted to myself before. As I was sitting in the cab, thinking hard, something twinkled in the corner of my eye. I looked over and saw it—a snowflake had landed on the window of the cab. It sparkled and shined in the varying light until it melted away from the heat of the glass, then its brethren started arriving, constantly at first, then suddenly in droves. The driver made some uninspired comment about the instant snowstorm but I didn't reply. It swirled all around us, and soon we were in a whiteout. It was beautiful, of course—but I don't need to tell you what a snowstorm is like. I just got the most powerful feeling of déjà vu, and I knew exactly what moment in time I was connecting to—the night Gustavo died. In fact, I had the most overwhelmingly bizarre feeling that it really _was _the night that Gustavo died again, and my heart started racing, and I started to get dizzy, and before I knew it I was falling sideways onto the seat.

When I woke up, I had that feeling that you always get when you come out of sudden unconsciousness—displacement; I didn't know how long I'd been out. As I sat up again, I noticed several things. First, it was dark, and the snow was falling at a regular pace again. Next, that the driver was gone and I was alone. I smelled something briefly—I think it was Carlos' cologne. That confused me, so I twisted around in my seat, looking in every direction to see if he was there, and that's when my hand slid into the crevice between the vertical and horizontal parts of the seat and I felt something tucked way back in there. I pressed down on it with my finger and slid it out. It was a fortune. I read it and recognized it instantly. It was the message that had been inside both Logan's and Carlos' fortune cookies on that mysterious night at the Chinese buffet. There was a whispering all around—a voice I couldn't make out—and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was in the same cab that Logan and Carlos had taken to the hospital from the Chocolate Warehouse.

There was more whispering, fluctuating and reverberating, soft and fast, then loud and slow, and the air in the cab wiggled and buzzed and I saw little mirages of Carlos' face and Logan's body here and there. I threw open the door and jumped out of the cab, desperate to get away from my friends who seemed to be straddling the border between this and some other dimension. That's when I saw where we were. The cab was stuck in a traffic jam, just like Logan and Carlos had described it. That traffic jam was the reason that they'd gotten to the hospital too late to see Gustavo still alive. So, if that's where I was, then I realized—Gustavo was still alive, and there was still time for me to get to the hospital! I ran as fast as I could down the sidewalk, recognizing where I was because it was only a few blocks away from the hospital. When I got there, I found my way to the waiting room just outside Gustavo's room. I was incredibly scared of what I was going to find, but even more excited that I had been given the chance to solve the mystery of it all for myself.

I saw Kristen sitting next to Kelly. It was like I was looking at them from deep underwater, and they were standing there at the surface, all vague and unstable in appearance. Kristen got up and went over to sign the visitor's roster, then headed for Gustavo's room. I followed her. She stood beside Gustavo's bed for a moment. Then she turned around suddenly and talked to the corner of the room for a few minutes. I craned my neck to try to see who she was talking to, but there was no one there. Then she put her hand on the power cord connected to Gustavo's life support machine. Just then, the doorknob started to turn on the door into the room and Kristen panicked, diving for the bed next to Gustavo's and pulling the privacy curtain out to hide herself. That's when Hawk came in. He talked to Gustavo, but I couldn't hear it any better than if he was on the other side of a brick wall, and couldn't see him any better than if he was on the other side of a tinted, dirty window. He put his hand on the power cord too… and then Kristen made a noise, and he pulled back the curtain and found her. That's when Freight Train came to the door, and they both got under the bed to hide from him.

I fully expected that Freight Train would be the one who killed Gustavo then; that would've explained everything to my satisfaction. But that's not what happened. He resisted the urge to kill and left the room in peace. That's when Kristen and Hawk got out from under the bed and went their separate ways awkwardly. I saw Kristen hold something shiny out to show Hawk, who nodded and left. Kristen waited for the door to close behind him, and then turned back to Gustavo. At that point, I was 100% sure that she was going to kill him. But that's not what happened. She took a step towards the bed, and I saw her foot slide under the power cord, because I could see objects very clearly, just not people. She shook her head and hurried out of the room, tripping over the cord and dropping from her hand what I realized was her earring. The rest of it happened in rapid-fire action. Hawk showed up after a few seconds, paused at the foot of Gustavo's bed, then lunged forward decidedly and pulled the plug out of the wall. He left without looking back. I watched Gustavo die as Kelly's footsteps came up the hall. She stepped in, saw the scene, and then hurried back out. In came Kristen, who panicked and plugged Gustavo back in, even though it was too late. She picked up her earring and ran. Only a few seconds later Kelly, Kendall and Det. Simms came rushing back down the hall to find Gustavo flatlining and looking as if he'd died naturally. Then came Logan and Carlos, then Freight Train again, and finally Kristen. Just as Kelly was punching her in the face, I gasped for air and opened my eyes.

"Hey buddy, you alright back there? We made it to the police station alright, snow be damned." The scene came into focus and it was afternoon again, the afternoon of October 11th. The cab driver furrowed his eyebrows at me. His meter had run up to almost fifty dollars. I had to go use the ATM, but I paid him after all and he left me outside the police station in the blizzard.

"So that's how it happened…" I murmured to myself as he drove away.

**Mrs. Knight's POV**

My conversation with Kendall left me very anxious—and very sick. I threw up my breakfast and any water I tried to force down, and then naturally refused my lunch. When you're in jail, nobody cares whether you eat lunch or not. In fact, they're very understanding. If they had had the choice between the food they made me eat and going hungry, they knew that they'd fast for as long as they could. When it came time for my daily phone privilege, I could barely stand up and drag myself over to the old dinosaur payphone that hung on the wall, and the guard that they kept on me watched me very suspiciously so I just told him it was menopause and he took that answer gladly without question. There were a dozen calls that I wanted to make, but I knew I had to make this one count, so I decided that there was only one person that I could really depend on to come through for me under the circumstances. Regrettably, that person was Dr. Hollywood.

Three hours later, I was informed that the good doctor had arrived and I told the guard to please let him in. He looked at me peculiarly again, probably because I had discovered the only position on my bed that kept me from vomiting, and that was upside-down with my head hanging off the edge and my legs sticking straight up against the wall. Dr. Hollywood entered with a little white bag in his hand and tilted his head to the side with a mocking grin.

"How's it hangin' Kristy, darling?" he asked with his douchebag suaveness.

"Oh shut up, you spray-tanned prick. Did you get the goods or what?"

He held up the bag tauntingly. "Oh, this? You want it? I expected a little more gratitude, what with me having to smuggle it in in the secret pocket of my frock like some black market drug dealer—"

"Fork it over!" I moaned as a bolt of pain shot through my intestines and up into my stomach. I stifled my gag reflex, which was not being helped by the intense stench of Dr. Hollywood's 'Cuda man spray. He threw the bag at me and it landed right on my belly, sending me lurching over the toilet, which was luckily just a few feet away (probably the only perk of living in a cell). After a painful bout of dry-heaving, I grabbed the bag and dumped it out onto the bed. There they were, just as requested: a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, a box of honey flavored graham crackers and a home pregnancy test.

"How _did _you manage to get knocked up, anyway?" he asked me. I could tell he was just eating this up, after the way I cut our date short to hold vigil for Gustavo at the hospital, which I somehow guessed he had resented, considering his absurdly over-inflated ego and totally unwarranted sense of self-importance. "I would've thought you were way over the hill by now."

"Fuck you." I grumbled as I unboxed the pee stick and threw the box to the side. "Contrary to popular belief, I am still a fertile woman. Not that I don't wish it weren't so now…"

"Aren't you going to read the directions?" he asked facetiously.

"Oh please. I may only have two kids but this is nowhere _near _my third pregnancy test." I stood up laboriously and unbuttoned my pants. "Ahem? Wouldja at least turn around?" he obliged, but I couldn't have expected him to have the decency to shut up while I was on the toilet.

"Karma, eh Kristy? It sure works in mysterious ways."

"You're an awfully cocky son-of-a-bitch, considering you're the father."

Well that got his attention. He spun around with fear in his eyes and suddenly he was Dr. Serious Business. "What do you mean I'm the father? We only went on one date! We didn't even hold hands! Even super-swimmers like the boy wonder's that actually got you Prego-my-Eggo can't get in by sharing an appetizer!"

"Hello? Still peeing here." He turned around again. "Thank you very much, and yes, James _is _the one that actually got me Prego-my-Eggo. Splendid use of medical terminology, by the way. But you're totally missing the point, Simon."

"It's pronounced Simón."

"You're totally missing the point, Simone. Okay, done. You can turn around now." I shook the stick out and set it on top of the toilet to formulate its answer.

"Enlighten me, then. By the way, oddly specific order with the graham crackers."

"It's called a craving, Einstein. You try being pregnant—I mean, _probably_ pregnant and living without your goddamn honey flavored graham crackers. Oh, that's right; you _can't _try it because you're a _man_. What a perfect reason to shut your mouth." I sat back down on the bed and opened the box. I brought one cracker up to my mouth, sniffed it, then threw it back down and dry heaved for a few minutes. Wiping my mouth, I looked over to see Simón sticking a piece of cinnamon gum in his mouth. "For Christ's sake, no! No more terrible smells in here! I'm gonna hurl up a lung!" He took the gum out of his mouth, wadded it up into the wrapper and stuck it back in his pocket, glaring at me. "Again, thank you very much. Now, let me try to say this slowly and simply so that you can understand it. I am, I assume, carrying James' baby. I have been for almost two months now. I am also about to go on trial for statutory rape, the same statutory rape which conceived this baby. Get it? Now how do you think it would look if the judge found out that I was carrying my victim's child? Do you think it would make me look more or less guilty?"

"More, definitely."

"Bingo! Now, if I come into court this weekend with you at my side and reveal to the judge that I have been in a committed relationship with you for months, since long before I slept with James, and that we purposefully conceived a child together so that we could raise it in a stable, loving household, do you think that that would make me look more or less guilty?"

"Well, less, but none of that is even remotely true."

"Well, dipshit, that's because it's a big fat lie."

"But don't you think that's a little risky?"

"Simone, honey, I really don't have a choice as to whether this is risky or not. I'm on trial and I'm guilty."

"So… what you're proposing for the judge to hear is that you and I are in love, and that your one blunder was getting drunk and stupid with your teenage son's best friend, when you were already pregnant by me, and then barely remembering but sorely regretting it in the morning?"

"Ah, see now? You're just as good a liar as I am, buddy. Do we have a deal then?"

"Yeah, sure, but I wouldn't exactly call it a deal. I mean, what's in it for me?"

"Isn't my friendship and undying gratitude incentive enough?"

"Maybe enough to pretend to be your boyfriend, but to perjure myself…?"

"Fine, you crusty bastard. I'll pay you when it's all over. Pinky promise. Now go away so I can take a nap."

"But what about the test?" he asked, nodding towards the stick on top of the toilet.

"Oh, right…" I lifted myself off the bed, again with much effort, holding my pants up as I did since I hadn't had the energy to zip them back up when I was done peeing. I waddled over and picked the test up, holding it close enough to my face that there would be no trouble in distinguishing between a plus and a minus, but not close enough that the smell of my own pee would make me dry-heave again. "Well, it's official. Happy Father's Day, Simone."


	23. Chapter 23

**Carlos' POV**

As the meeting at Hawk Records was letting out, I got a text from Kendall asking if Logan and I would join him for lunch. It was all very mysterious, with us waking up that morning and him being gone, then him not showing up at the album launch meeting, then texting me out of the blue, which was all the more reason for us to accept the invitation and get caught up to speed on the inevitable drama. So Kelly and Hawk said to go ahead and enjoy ourselves until six o'clock, when the big party started. People should learn not to take asking us to have fun so lightly, because Logan and I take having fun very seriously. But anyway, we had to get the lunch with Kendall out of the way before we got to _that._

We were both a little surprised when we arrived at the Sunrise Café to find Kendall sitting in the corner by the window sipping soda with Mercedes Griffin. I gave Logan the "Let's attempt to be nice…" look and he countered with a "Bitch, please!" look. "Hey guys!" I greeted them perkily and I could just hear Logan's eyes rolling around in his head.

"Oh, hey!" Kendall said, spazzing out and trying to scoot farther away from Mercedes on their side of the booth. Mercedes reacted by scooting even closer, and then Kendall was trapped and squished between the attention-addicted, inappropriately affectionate heiress and the cold, bulletproof glass of the big window. He stared at us helplessly as we took our seats opposite them.

"Hi boys…!" Mercedes sung, fluttering her fingers in our direction and molesting Logan with her eyes. I grinded my teeth trying not to say something hateful. Logan gave me his "You still wanna be nice?" look and wrapped his arm around my waist under the table. I shook my head and smiled and Mercedes raised an eyebrow. "Oops! I dropped my fork!" she said in her best Betty Boop voice and got down on the floor. When she came up, she'd forgotten all about her imaginary dropped fork, but she looked rather bewildered. "So… you two are…" she couldn't spit the words out with her mind so blown that her eyes were almost crossed.

"We're together." I said somewhat triumphantly. Logan looked at me and smiled wide. It was the first time I'd ever come out and said it like that. Mercedes' jaw was on the floor.

"So, Kendall… to what circumstance do we owe our thanks for the presence of our good friend Ms. Griffin this afternoon?" Logan asked as if she weren't sitting right there staring at him.

"Um… well I feel like it's hard to explain…" he ran his hand through his hair and sighed like he always does when he doesn't want to talk about something but knows he has to. "I can't be in the band anymore. I mean—I'm quitting Big Time Rush. I'm sorry."

Logan was speechless, but not me. "What? No, you can't quit. What are you talking about?"

"I just don't feel like it's what Gustavo would've wanted! All of the profit from his work is going into Shaun Hawk's pocket! He must be rolling over in his grave!" Mercedes was nodding like a bobble head, so I could tell they'd already been through the whole spiel before we got there.

"Bullshit man. No way. If you really felt that way you would never have gone on the promotional tour with us. I mean, we talked about this! Didn't we?" I looked to Logan for support. He nodded with wide eyes. "We all agreed, the three of us, that if Gustavo were still here, he would want Big Time Rush to succeed more than anything. More than _anything_. Even if it meant Hawk getting exactly what we'd been fighting against him to keep him from having since day one, that wasn't as much a kick to Gustavo's balls as us just limping back to Minnesota with our tails between our legs after all we've been through to get here. Right?"

"Right, but…" he started to answer me, but Mercedes cut him off.

"You have options." She told us as if the statement was a Christmas present. "Listen, I talked to my dad about this. Yes, initially his response to Gustavo's death was that all of your contracts would be terminated along with all other assets of Rocque Records when the company was liquidated. But after Kendall told me about all the trouble he's having with Big Time Rush being owned by Hawk…" she paused to glance at him and smile as if they had some delicious secret, "…Papa Griffin came around, and he's willing to let you guys back in."

"But who would be our producer?" Logan asked.

"Well… that's the exciting part! Can you guess?"

Logan and I exchanged a look of dread and shook our heads.

"I'll be your new producer! Ahaha! Doesn't that sound great? You'll still be under contract with the music division of RCM CBT Global-Net Sanyoid, but under the direction of me and my brand new company Mercedes Records! Vroom, vroom! Hell on wheels! Ahaha! I just came up with that. So you'll be my first ever project and the entire future of your band and my company will rest on my beginner's luck, but hey, better than selling your soul to that bastard Hawk, am I right?"

Just then, the waitress showed up with a plate of chili cheese fries and Mercedes started stuffing her face, giving the three of us a moment to talk off to the side. "Okay, spill." I demanded of Kendall as soon as we were out of earshot. "What's the real reason you're so fed up with Hawk Records that you're willing to comply with all of _this_, this terrible nightmare of an idea that is guaranteed to crash and burn?"

"And what did you have to do to get Mercedes to bend over backwards for us like this?" Logan asked with a disgusted grimace.

"First of all, you don't wanna know." Kendall said to Logan, then looked at both of us for a second and continued. "It's just… it's just the end of the road for me guys. I never said anything because I knew that we were all busy during the tour and I knew that we were all mourning Gustavo in our own way, but I haven't really been okay lately. It's been getting to me. All this shit with my mom and James and Gustavo and Kelly and Freight Train for God's sake… it's just too much, and I feel like it's been getting to Katie too. She's been acting very strange. I don't know if you've noticed, but she's been hanging all over me lately. She needs a lot of attention. I feel like it would be good for both of us if we just went away for a while, maybe back to Minnesota to be with our family for the holidays, y'know, once the trial is over. I'm just…" he stared off into the space between me and Logan's heads. "I'm worn down and worn out and I need to get back to basics."

"But what about the band?" Logan asked quietly.

"Yeah, Kendall, you're the leader. You're our rock. We can't replace you. You're irreplaceable." I put my hand on his shoulder pleadingly and he smiled sadly.

"So this whole 'Mercedes Records' thing was just a desperate farce?" Logan guessed.

"Yeah… I don't know why I thought it would work." He looked over at Mercedes, who was licking her fingers clean so that she could reply to an incoming text. "I guess we'd better finish lunch and let her down easy."

**Kendall's POV**

The truth about how I'd gotten Mercedes wrapped around my finger wasn't that gruesome; I'd just been embarrassed to admit it to Carlos and Logan. She made me go to the salon and get a manicure—yeah, her treat. Carlos and Logan were always talking about how great it was and that I should get my cuticles cleaned up and I just knew they'd never let me live it down if they found out. So I kept my hands in my pockets for most of the lunch, just knowing that they'd be able to tell if they saw them. We'd worked the whole thing out from across the room as Mercedes got a fresh coat of ruby red nail polish and I got my fingertips sanded down to nubs. And I thought there was no amount of emasculation that I had not yet suffered. I got to see a side of Mercedes that she very rarely showed. She's a very lonely person, behind all the attention whoring and expensive accessories. She practically had a conniption when I said I wanted to meet with her. So instead of letting her down easy at lunch, I told her that Carlos and Logan needed some time to think about the deal and that they would talk to James and get back to us on it. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do once that excuse wore off.

Well, by and by we got around to leaving, but Mercedes wanted to stop and ask our waitress something before she left. "Excuse me ma'am," she said, tapping on the older woman's shoulder as she stood at the counter swiping someone's credit card, "what ever happened to that other woman that used to work here? She was always my favorite waitress because she was so punctual with refilling everyone's coffee. Her name was Rose, if I remember correctly."

The waitress turned and smiled brightly as she heard the name. "Oh yes, Rose Bitters! Why, it's been a mighty long time since she came to work. I haven't the slightest idea what did happen to her. I miss the old gal terribly, though. We were pretty close for a while. Her brother still comes in here from time to time, though only in the strangest hours of the night, so I've never gotten to talk to him myself. I only take day shifts." She was very friendly about the conversation, but I could tell Mercedes hadn't really wanted that much information because she was starting to sneer and look at her watch.

My ears perked up when I realized that they were talking about Mr. Bitters, our Mr. Bitters, the man for whom the LAPD had been searching for over seven weeks but who had completely evaded capture despite being wanted for murder. "Rose Bitters?" I asked the waitress, cutting in. "Her brother's name is Reginald, right?"

"Right! I suppose you know them as well."

"Unfortunately, yes. Mr. Bitters is a fugitive. He's one of the most wanted men in the city and he killed our groundskeeper seven weeks ago. You said he still comes to this restaurant?"

She looked perfectly shocked and disturbed at the new information. "Yes he does, but I had no idea he was a murderer! What about Rose? He didn't get to her too, did he?"

"Oh, she's dead." Mercedes said nonchalantly while staring down at her iPhone 4. "I guess she got crushed by an ice machine or something. They're still trying to figure that one out, because it was supposed to be nailed to the floor. But they assume it was an accident."

The waitress burst into tears. "Oh my God, what a terrible fate! What a terrible, awful thing! Poor Rose! Excuse me for a moment!" she rushed back into the employees only area and there was the sound of loud nose-blowing.

"Mercedes, why on Earth did you ask the waitress about Rose Bitters if you already knew she was dead?" I asked her angrily.

"Oh, I didn't know. But I got bored when you started talking so I decided to Google her and read some LA Times articles about her death in the online archives."

Carlos came over to me from where he and Logan had been listening. "Do you think we'll get any more out of the waitress?" he asked me.

"No… we should probably leave her alone. But now that we know that Bitters is still sniffing around L.A., I feel like we have to do something about it. I'd just assumed he was long gone."

"Me too." Carlos said. "It's exciting to think that we could still catch him after all this time. He must be really far gone in the head to not realize how dangerous it is for him here, just down the street from the Palm Woods!"

"But more on the point, Kendall... are you coming to the launch party tonight?" Logan butted in.

"No, I wasn't planning on it."

They both looked at me pityingly. "So, what? You're going to go to the hospital and spend the rest of your life watching Citrine sleep?"

"Maybe not for the rest of my life, but at least until _my mom is sent to prison!_" I stormed out, angry at them for completely failing to understand the way I was feeling.

**Logan's POV**

Carlos and I were shocked at first with all that Kendall had said, but we couldn't pursue him. We just had to accept how he was feeling and understand it as well as we could, but it wasn't our place to tell him what he needed to do with his life, even if it meant the end of Big Time Rush. To be honest, the whole dog and pony show was starting to wear on me too. Sometimes I just wished that things could be simple again. I knew that that was at least part of how Kendall was feeling. After laboring over our friend's dilemma for a few more minutes, Carlos and I said goodbye to Mercedes, who had sunk back into the booth and was lost in a maelstrom of celebrity gossip blogging, and went back to the car to commence with our enjoyment of ourselves.

"Where should we go?" I asked him. He was staring at me. With those eyes. Sometimes I still didn't know what to do with myself. I felt so shy when he looked into me that way. Half of me always wanted to jump on top of him and half of me always wanted to run at full speed in the opposite direction. And then there was the soft, constant screaming in the back of my mind. It just screamed no, _no_, this is wrong, but I had to learn to ignore it or else I would've gone insane. Still, I had this eerie feeling every time I told him I loved him that I was lying, even though as far as I could tell I meant it…

"I don't see why we can't enjoy ourselves right here…" he grinned and climbed over into the passenger seat where I was sitting and started kissing my neck and sliding his hands up into my hoodie.

"Carlos… ha-ha…" I laughed nervously and let my eyes roll back into my head. He straddled me and started to get me caught up in all the heat and pressure, with the friction of two pairs of blue jeans and the way he could wrap me up in a cocoon of taut muscle like he'd trapped me in his spider web and was preparing me to be eaten. I gasped and my eyes flew open when his hands plunged into my pants and I saw her over his shoulder. Mercedes was walking to her car, but she'd spotted us in ours and was then standing in the middle of the street gawking, her eyes bulging at the sight of us all hot and bothered in the front seat. We'd been having sex for seven weeks, but it had always been in hotel rooms with the curtains drawn and the lights out. Even though our first time had been in the back of Gustavo's limo, I couldn't take it that way, in broad daylight in a commercial district. A part of me was still too ashamed. So I tapped on Carlos' shoulder and pushed him gently off of me.

"Maybe we should go somewhere else. Y'know, somewhere a little more _private_." I nodded in Mercedes' direction. He looked and laughed when he saw her. He waved and she waved back awkwardly, stopping halfway through as she realized that she probably didn't want to be seen associating with us at that point, then hurrying on and trying to shake the dirty thoughts out of her mind.

He turned back to me and shrugged. "Who cares? I'd have let her watch, if she'd have gotten a rise out of it. We're entertainers, Logie, after all. We do live to please. I live to please _you_…" he started to kiss my neck again and I had to push him off again.

"No, I'm serious. Let's go somewhere else, okay?"

"Somewhere else? You mean like _our _somewhere else?"

My mind went back to that day he took me to the vineyard and for a moment I felt sweet serenity. Then I realized that that was the same day we missed our chance to say goodbye to our producer and the serenity was gone. "Yes, Carlos. _Our_ somewhere else. Let's go there now."

Carlos could tell that I was in a strange mood so he didn't talk much while we drove out of town and down the dusty side road to the old vineyard, the entrance of which, being a bridge, was so overgrown by the trees growing out of the creek that ran under it that it was barely passable, and I wondered to myself how long it had been since anyone else came through. We pulled up to the rusty wrought iron gates and Carlos got out of the car to open them. Normally, there was a padlock on the gates to which the owners had given Carlos a key, but as I saw from inside the car the padlock had been broken and thrown to the side, and the gates were already slightly ajar. Carlos stared at the padlock on the ground for a moment, then shook his head and pushed the gates open so we could drive through.

We passed the cobblestone cottage where the old couple lived on our way past the grapevines and towards the bottom of the cliff. I couldn't be sure, but it looked like one of the windows was broken, along with the door, which seemed to be hanging off his hinges. I didn't say anything to Carlos because I didn't want to ruin our date, but I had a really awful feeling in the pit of my stomach and I wanted nothing more than to give the cottage a once-over to make sure the owners were all right. Still, I betrayed my better sensibilities and let Carlos lead me up the cliff, through the coarse brush and up to the stony peak. We looked out upon the rich California farmland and watched the heavy snow-clouds glide across the landscape, casting a cold shadow on all that they witnessed. A violent shiver went through me when they passed over us and the temperature dropped tangibly, perhaps twenty degrees in a few minutes' time. Carlos took off his leather jacket and draped it around my shoulders, snuggling up close to me so we could share the heat. Something about the smell of that thing made my brain go numb and my heart flutter.

"Maybe it wasn't such a good day to come here. I didn't realize it was going to snow. Do you want to head back?" Carlos sounded accommodating enough, but when I turned away from the panorama I saw that he was giving me his puppy dog eyes which suggested he wanted to stay.

"No. Let's stay." I tried to smile but I wasn't even convincing myself.

"Okay!" he lit up. "We've still got a couple of hours before we have to be on our way home if we want to make it to the launch party—"

"No." I shook my head and Carlos looked confused. "Let's play hooky. Kendall's not going to be there so it's just going to be us and James and I'll be damned if I want to spend the night with him. Let's stay here all night. We can keep each other warm…" I scratched Carlos in the special place halfway down his back and he purred in response. "Why don't you go get those wooly blankets from the trunk so we don't turn into ice sculptures? By the time you get back…" I gestured at the sun readying itself to land in the soft bosom of fertile soil on the horizon, "…we can watch the sun set together."

I knew that Carlos wouldn't be able to resist a proposition like that, and I was glad, because when he started back down the cliff for the car I was finally alone. It was just me and my thoughts and I desperately needed to think. That voice in the back of my head was really starting to get to me. Now it wasn't just screaming about the falsehood of my relationship with Carlos, but about the danger of whatever or whoever had broken into and ransacked the vineyard. When the first delicate snowflakes started to come down, they made me remember the night that Gustavo died. Carlos and me in the cab, and the freak snowstorm, and the traffic jam, and the fortune that somehow found its way back into my pocket… the fortune! I stuck my hands into my pockets and groped around, but it was nowhere to be found. I felt rather dumb after that, because it was totally illogical of me to think that it would be lurking in my pocket a second time.

"I mean, sure, it ended up in my pocket that one time, but that was an anomaly, a strange coincidence. It's not like the fortune is some magical thing that regenerates inside my clothes every time I lose it or throw it away or rip it up. I'm skeptic, goddammit, and there's no such thing as magic!"

I nodded in approval of what I'd just said and tried to focus on the screaming to decipher its message. But my mind kept wandering back to the cab ride. When I closed my eyes, I saw the inside of that cab, except now instead of me and Carlos it was James who was sitting there. He pulled something out of the seat. It was my fortune! I could see it so clearly.

_It is time for your feelings towards old acquaintances to be reevaluated._

The message resounded in my mind. It seemed so significant, so personal. Carlos and I have always been friends, but were these feelings of lust always hidden underneath the platonic façade? I lay back in the grass and remembered the day that I laid in the same spot under the bright sunshine with Carlos on top of me, and that memory filled me with love. Then I remembered the moment of clarity in the cab where I felt like I didn't love him at all. He disgusted me then. I felt that that night was still happening somewhere not so far away, and I got a powerful desire to take out my phone and call James. But I shook it off. I sat back up and looked around. The grinning morning glories were all shriveled up now, and the butterflies and starlings had all flown away to Mexico. But I felt the ghost of their love. Then I felt a very real fear.

"How could I have sent Carlos down to the car all by himself? Whatever broke into the vineyard is probably still lurking around, waiting for its next unsuspecting victim! Oh my God, _Carlos_! I have to save him!" I started running down the cliff, jumping over boulders and tearing through the undergrowth. As I leaped off one last rock to reach level ground, I landed right on top of my boyfriend without seeing him coming. Luckily, he'd been holding the wooly blankets so that cushioned my fall onto him. There was nothing to cushion his fall, of course, but he didn't complain.

"Well hello there!" Carlos said, cracking up.

"Carlos! You're okay! You didn't get attacked by a puma or a slasher or a Sasquatch? Not even a little bit?"

"Nope. In fact, I was doing just fine until this maniac pounced on me from the bushes and nearly broke my—" I shut him up by kissing him. I kissed him harder and hungrier than I ever had before, and I tossed the blankets aside and held onto him for dear life. After a few minutes my heart was beginning to quiet itself and I came up for air.

"Carlos… I was so scared. Thinking about you getting hurt and me having to live without you for the rest of my life—what was I thinking? I never want to lose you! You're the best thing that's ever happened to me! I lo—" I stopped, swallowed and started again, only quieter. "I love you." _**Liar.**_ "I'm not lying! I mean it!" _**No you don't. You only wish it were true. **_"No! It's true! I love you more than I've ever loved anything! I love you more than myself! I love you more than microbiology and quantum physics _combined_! I love you more than I could ever hope to explain! I wish you were a piece of gum so that I could swallow you and you could stay in my stomach forever. I want _you_. I want _this_." I rolled over and pulled him onto me. There was a lot more I wanted to say, but the time for talking was over. So I showed him how I felt instead. We made love and I fell asleep in his arms. He probably thought I was crazy, but it was surely the best he'd ever had so he was loath to question it.

I woke up feeling even stranger than I'd felt before. I couldn't see anything, so it took me a minute to realize that it was Carlos sleeping on top of me that was making me feel so heavy. Once my eyes did adjust to the nearly complete darkness, I realized that the snow was coming down hard on top of us and that Carlos was covered in it. I rolled him over without waking him and the cold wind blasted me without mercy. I quickly longed for the Carlos-Logan-ground sandwich that had kept me warm before. I stared at Carlos for a minute as if I was seeing him for the first time. He looked like a Latin angel lying on a cloud; so peacefully he accepted his bed of snow. I only realized that I was crying when I felt the sting of my tears freezing on my face. Of course I loved him. He'd been doing everything he could to make me happy for seven weeks and he'd never been afraid to put his heart on the chopping block for me. If I stayed with him now, through the hard times, someday we would have our day in Paris, our day in New York, our day in Aspen, our day in Tijuana. It's the patience and fidelity of the dire straits that make those moments in the sun so sweet. If we just stayed together, everything would be alright. If I just gave my heart to him, he would protect it. I kind of… trusted him to do that. I kind of… melted when I saw the way the snowflakes dangled off the ends of his eyelashes. It's the little things that make a person beautiful.

I wanted to see what time it was before I woke him up, so I took my phone out of my pocket, but apparently the battery had died while we were asleep. So I gently slid my hand into Carlos' pocket and brought out his phone to check. It was 8:36. I was about to put the phone back in his pocket when I felt something slide around on the back of it. I knew what it was instantly. I slid the fortune out of my grasp and got it between my fingers so I could hold it up to my face. The same as mine. Of course. That's when something snapped. A shiver ran up my spine and my heart dropped into my stomach. I felt intensely nauseous. The smell of incense flooded my nostrils and I shifted to a new level of lucidity, like waking up from a dream and only then realizing what a poor imitation of reality the fantasy was. The screaming got so loud in my head that I thought it was going to explode. And then it stopped. And when I looked at Carlos… I saw my best friend. Just that. Not a lover, not a soul mate, not a provider or a protector or a full moon to hypnotize my hopelessly romantic heart. Not the beginning and the end, but something in the middle. It was exactly the way I'd felt about him _before _we went to the Glory Panda to celebrate the completion of our album.

"How… what…" I backed away from him, stumbling in the snow and dropping his phone clumsily. "It was all blind lust. Some kind of spell. I never believed it. The screaming voice was me all along. The love-struck puppy that's been controlling my life is just some delusional zombie camped out in my head. It was all a lie. It was all for nothing." I turned away from Carlos and started running towards the car. When I got there, I realized that he still had the keys, so I ran even more frantically back to him to get them. I was almost there when I felt a crunch under my foot. I looked down and saw Carlos' phone in three or four pieces and caked with snow. I didn't have time to think about that though. I stole his keys and stole his car and shot out of the vineyard like a bat out of Hell.

I looked at Carlos' fortune in my hand again. The damn things were magic… weren't they? How did this end up in Carlos' pocket just like mine had showed up before, without explanation and not to mention seven weeks after he got it?

"We all should've listened to Carlos after all… that old Chinese voodoo magic, he said. They all mean _some_thing, he said." I looked at the lucky numbers.

_Lucky numbers: 12, 15, 7, 1, 14, 8, 5, 14, 4, 5, 18, 19, 15, 14_

Then it hit me. All of the numbers were less than twenty-six! How had I not noticed that before? That could only mean one thing! They must be— "They must represent the alphabet. Duh!"

So I worked it out, and was both unsurprised and scared to death of what it spelled.

12 – L

15 – O

7 – G

1 – A

14 – N

8 – H

5 – E

18 – N

4 – D

5 – E

18 – R

19 – S

15 – O

14 – N

Even though I didn't have my fortune on me, I could still see James holding it when I closed my eyes, and without a doubt the lucky numbers designated the man with which I was intended to fall in love.

3 – C

1 – A

18 – R

12 – L

15 – O

19 – S

7 – G

1 – A

18 – R

3 – C

9 – I

1 – A

The code seemed so easy to break; I wondered why it hadn't occurred to me before. That's when I thought… a key symptom of whatever spell that the fortune had cast on me was a lack of self-awareness. It must have prevented me from analyzing my circumstances too much, which was exactly what I was always known to do—overanalyze. So that was it. I'd discovered the whole scheme. Now there was only one thing left to do: get answers from the horse's mouth. I had to go back to the Glory Panda and find out how and why this was happening, and who had been controlling my mind, and how to save everyone else, and I was determined to succeed, even if it meant burning the whole damn place to the ground. What more did I stand to lose?


	24. Chapter 24

**Hawk's POV**

You might be wondering where I ran off to after I killed Gustavo. You've probably been thinking, "Wouldn't Hawk have looked less guilty if he had returned to the scene of the crime once Gustavo was discovered like everyone else?" In retrospect, that would've been a good idea, but what's one tiny mistake in the shadow of so many colossally good decisions which I made that night that led to my acquisition of Big Time Rush? First of all, I have to tip my hat to Lady Luck; quite a stroke of good fortune is what set the first gears in motion of what would become my masterpiece scheme. How fitting that a chance encounter at the Chocolate Warehouse would become an enigmatic impetus upon the fabled cog of destiny, which would in turn call to action a grand machine, a roaring beast of commerce and success which would lift Hawk Records (and myself personally) to unprecedented heights. On the night of the album launch party, I and my kin rested at the apexes of both relevance and opportunity. Without a doubt, the only direction left for us to go… was down. So where _did_ I run off to when I fled the hospital that night after all? Actually, I had a toast to give. It went a little something like this…

I flashed my room key to the receptionist at the front desk as I strode past her and into the elevator. Indeed—the world looks rather different when you've got a Hawk's eye view. I've got a room rented out permanently at Club Platine, and if you're thinking "But I've never heard of any such hotel in Hollywood!" then I would reply "Of course you haven't. It's only for rich and important people and if your time is worth so little that you're willing to give it away to me just so I can tell you a snippet of my autobiography then you're certainly not rich or important enough to have heard of Club Platine." All you need to know is that it's very well hidden in the uppermost floors of a much cheaper hotel, and in fact you didn't even need to know that. I must swipe my key in the elevator to get off at my floor, then again to enter my suite of course.

I was pleased to see that Rebecca had made herself comfortable, and that the champagne that I'd specifically told her to fetch from the back of the wine cave was on ice. I descended into the Zen parlor, bottle and glasses in hand and found her waiting for me beside the koi pond. She rose to greet me as I popped the cork.

"So it's done then? Gustavo Rocque is dead and Big Time Rush is ours?" she asked, cautiously hopeful.

"Indeed, Becky my sweet. Big Time Rush is finally _mine._" I filled her glass after mine and proposed the toast that I'd been waiting years to drink to. "To us. May this be the first of many toasts over the grave of a fallen enemy during our life together." We touched glasses and her eyes twinkled as she took her first sip.

"Shaun, this is the best champagne I've ever had! How long have you been waiting to drink this?" she took the bottle from me and scanned the labels for information. I sat down on one of the smooth mossy rocks around the pond and she sat down beside me.

"Remember that time in Milan?" I watched as the memory came back to her and she smiled.

"This is from that café, isn't it? The one with the amazing—"

"Tiramisu?" I finished her thought, bringing a plate around that I'd been holding behind my back.

"No… you didn't! How did you get more? It looks exactly like it did… when was that, five years ago? My God, has it really been five years?"

"The best five years of my life." I said, gently kissing her hand.

"Oh Shaun…" she shook her head. "You saved it all this time. And the cake, it must've cost a fortune to have it shipped across the ocean and the whole continent just so it could be here tonight. You're amazing. I'm so lucky."

"Not as lucky as me. I would never have survived without you. You've been my angel, my savior, my shining star since the moment I first laid eyes on you. God knows where I'd be without you."

"Oh, you're just saying that. I'm not a miracle worker. You're still a cold-hearted bastard and I'm still a cutthroat bitch and we've failed consistently at reining each other in. The truth is that we just taste good together. Like champagne and tiramisu. We just appreciate each other too much to mess up what we have."

"I agree completely. Losing you simply isn't an option." We held each other's gaze for an intense moment before I took up the bottle to refill her glass. Just as it was almost full, something came tumbling out and sunk to the bottom of the glass, twinkling in the wavering moonlight reflected off of the water beside us. Rebecca gasped and her eyes grew wider as she stared at it. Breathing heavily, she glanced at me questioningly and I nodded for her to go ahead. She drank the wine down until she could get her finger into it and she brought out the dripping golden ring.

"D-d-diamonds… in the champagne…" she blurted out. I'd caught her completely by surprise.

There were ten diamonds on the front of the band and fourteen more in the shape of a heart around the centerpiece, the twenty-fifth diamond, much larger than the others. "It's a champagne diamond." I told her. "Get it?"

"Shaun… it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen… and it's been in here, waiting for me for five years. Even back then, in Milan, when I was just your assistant on a business trip and nothing more, you loved me enough to have this made…"

When she finally tore her eyes off of the ring, I was kneeling before her. "And just like the champagne, my love for you has grown sweeter with every day. Now it's time to make it official. We finally made it to the top, Becky. Why don't you and I go the rest of the way and see if we can tear open the sky? Will you marry me?"

She nodded and dove into me so that she could cry her tears of joy into my shoulder. A few minutes later we realized that she'd accidentally dropped the ring into the koi pond and we had to kill several of the fish before we found the one that'd swallowed it. That ring was worth as much as a million koi, so it didn't ruffle my feathers much. When I say that, I don't mean it was worth so much because, y'know, that was a priceless moment and Rebecca is the love of my life and we only get to get engaged once, but that it was literally worth that much out of my pocket. I did the math roughly in my head before I made the comment. After all, what has led to my attainment of such astonishing financial success if not my uncanny business savvy and monetary mindfulness?

**James' POV**

If I hadn't just had that conversation with Kelly about Kristen killing Gustavo and Freight Train being on the lam for a crime he didn't commit, I might have kept the dream I'd had in the taxi a secret. After all, it was only a dream and there was no reason to think that it was an accurate representation of the events on the night that Gustavo was murdered. Dreams make no difference to reality, and the fact remained that I didn't have enough information to be sure of anything. But it had been so real, so incredibly convincing that I decided it was better to be safe than to be sorry, and that I would call Kelly even if she was going to think I was crazy. When I did, she picked up very quickly.

"James? Are you okay?"

"Yes, Kelly I'm fine. I need to tell you something."

"Is it about quitting the band? Because if it is, I really think you should consider what kind of choice you're making before you do anything irreversible." She was as anxious and doting as ever.

"Just forget about the band for a second!" I shouted, then calmed down after a moment of silence. "Sorry about that. Just listen. I had a dream. I'm not entirely sure that it was just a dream, but I have no other rational explanation for it. I passed out in a cab on the way to the police station and dreamed that I was in the hospital on the night that Gustavo died. I watched everyone play their part in his death, and it made sense. Now I'm not claiming to be clairvoyant, but I think this dream may have been prophetic. Lord knows, with the strange things that Katie's been doing lately, I'll believe almost anything. Have I told you she can literally read my mind?"

"Y'know it's funny that you say that. Just the other day, we were eating ice cream and she dropped her cone onto the floor, so I went to get some napkins to clean it up and when I came back, she was holding the cone again and it looked perfectly fine… I asked her what happened and she cited the "five second rule." The more I think about it, the more it doesn't make any damn sense."

"Okay, okay Kelly stop distracting me from the point! The point is that Hawk killed Gustavo."

There was a pause on the line and then I heard Kelly sigh. "James, I know that you love Mrs. Knight, and it must be really hard for you to accept what she's done, so it makes sense that you would have a dream about Hawk killing Gustavo to make yourself feel better. But that doesn't make it true."

"Fine, you're right. I concede that the dream doesn't make it true, but I'm standing outside the police station right now and I'll bet you a hundred bucks that if I go in there and ask her, Kristen will admit to me that everything happened exactly as I dreamt it."

"James—"

"Do we have a bet?"

"…sure. I could use a hundred dollars anyway. Call me back when you're done having your soul crushed by the truth, you stupid boy."

I smiled and hung up. A hundred dollars. That's a lot of bandanas. I started toward the doors and was just about to open them when they opened from the other side. There stood Dr. Hollywood, grinning at me like a cat that'd just caught his rat.

"Good afternoon Mr. Diamond." He said, slathering butter all over my name like a hot roll. "What brings you downtown today? Business or pleasure?"

I shoved past him. "None of your business."

"Touchy, touchy! You shouldn't go in to visit Kristen acting like that. She's very fragile right now."

I turned slowly and glared at him. It was difficult to look at him at all, with his teeth whiter and more reflective than the snow on the ground. I wondered if they were dentures. Something I was starting to realize about Dr. Hollywood was that he was secretly old. Underneath all the Botox and fake tan he was old enough to be my grandfather. "How the Hell would you know?" I asked angrily.

"Because I've just been in to see her, of course."

"Why? What makes you think she'd want to be visited by you?"

He chuckled and shook his head at me. "I'll let her tell you that. Although it would stand to reason that Kristen would like to be visited by anyone who's willing to visit her, considering none of her family or friends have dropped by even once since she was arrested. What makes you think she'd want to see _you_, after the way you've scorned her?"

"That's _still _none of your damn business." I responded, jabbing my finger at his chest. I let him grin at me smugly for another moment before I was fed up and left him to his sliminess. I knew that if Det. Simms saw me, she would probably try to keep me from talking to Kristen so near to the beginning of her trial, so I sidled my way through the rows of cubicles of her inferiors, taking a detour to duck around a few corners before coming up to the cellblock from the side. It was a lucky break, but the guard didn't know who I was so he let me in to talk to Kristen for a few minutes… under his supervision of course.

When I came to stand in front of her cell, she was sitting on the floor with her back slouched against the cement wall, chugging a bottle of Pepto-Bismol like a broke boozer chugs a bottle of bourgeois bourbon. She tore the bottle from her lips with a popping noise and gasped for air. She looked up at me quickly, then did a double take and stumbled to her feet, cautiously reading my expression.

"…James? I can't believe you're here." She looked like she wanted to reach out and pinch me to make sure she wasn't dreaming. She put her hands on the bars for support and came in as close to me as she could. "I've missed you. I've missed everyone."

Suddenly, it was as if I was watching _Mrs. Knight_ the movie. The scene was playing itself out before me, but I didn't condone anything that I was doing. My emotions were in control, and the reasonable part of me was just along for the ride. The theme song starting playing in my head. _And here's to you, Mrs. Knight. Jesus loves you more than you will know. Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! God bless you please, Mrs. Knight. Heaven holds a place for those who pray. Hey! Hey! Hey! _Next thing I knew, I was putting my hands around hers around the bars and leaning in to kiss her. A shockwave went through my body. It felt so much better than I remembered it. But that's what they say about absence. The guard came along and broke us up after a few seconds, saying he wasn't going to warn us again to keep our hands off of each other. Then he went back to stand in the corner. Kristen and I just stared at each other.

I licked my lips. "Hmm. Strawberry." She giggled and it was the most surreal moment yet. "You've got a little bit of..." I ran my finger across my upper lip to show her what I meant. She had a pink moustache, and it was the silliest thing I'd ever seen. As soon as she understood, she wiped her face vigorously with her sleeve and, upon seeing the pink stain that she'd made, cracked up again despite her embarrassment. I couldn't help but laugh with her. If someone had looked at us just then, they wouldn't have thought a thing had changed since Open Mic Karaoke night at the Palm Woods in August. I wished with all my heart that nothing ever had. We shared our laughter until the moment subsided, then she shut her eyes suddenly, clutched her stomach and fell down onto the bed. "Are you alright?" I asked and she groaned quietly.

"That depends on whose standards you're judging by." She opened her eyes and looked at me. "But why are you here…?" she asked as if the question had just occurred to her for the first time.

"I want to know why you told Kendall that you killed Gustavo. I know that you covered for him when you helped him to frame Freight Train because you were scared that he could turn around and frame you instead, but why take all the blame?"

She sat up sharply and gave me a crazy look. "How do you know all of that?"

"I had a dream. I saw Hawk kill Gustavo and I saw you and Freight Train not kill Gustavo and I saw everything."

"Oh James, I'm so glad you know the truth now! I would've told you sooner; I would've told everyone, in fact, now that I'm safe from Hawk and on trial for… _something _else, but no one ever returned my calls or came to visit me! I didn't even have a chance to tell Gina. I've had so much on my mind… poor Freight Train, I wonder how he's gotten along for seven weeks?"

"Never mind that, why'd you lie to Kendall?"

"No, no, I didn't mean for him to understand that I'd killed Gustavo. It's just the way he was carrying on this morning, he got me so upset, and I wasn't thinking straight and I just couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth. He took it all the wrong way."

I got my phone out and dialed Kelly's number. "Okay, I need you to tell Kelly that."

"James, no! If I tell her, she'll tell Hawk I told her and then who knows what he'll do to me!"

"I thought you said you felt safe from Hawk in here."

She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth to keep from moaning. "Gahh! Dammit. How could a person ever really feel safe from Hawk? That man's got eyes everywhere. He's omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnimalevolent. He's Jupiter _and_ Pluto in this town."

"Please Kristen. For me." I held the phone out to her. Whatever she saw in my eyes, it was enough for her to risk everything for. She talked to Kelly and told her as much as she could before Kelly hung up. Then she clutched her stomach again and dove for her toilet, throwing up all the Pepto-Bismol she'd managed to keep down for the last ten minutes. She flushed it away, tucked her hair behind her right ear and looked at me sheepishly. She didn't have the strength to move from being knelt on the floor. "You're certainly not alright. You seem really sick. Did one of the guards give you the—"

"No. I'm not sick." She looked guilty and bitter. If she had gone to court looking like that, the judge would've confused her with the next woman who was on trial for murder. "I'm pregnant."

I wasn't expecting that. What can I say? Call me naïve. I just wasn't. My vision of her softened as I processed the new information. If she was pregnant, that meant that everything that was happening to her was also happening to a fetus that was half me. In a way, that meant that we were in it together. For seven weeks I'd been ignoring the mother of my child. The first seven weeks of my baby's life had been spent in a jail cell. Knowing this, and seeing Kristen there looking all pitiful, gave me the intense desire to help her. It was my first paternal inclination. "Y-you've been carrying my baby, then… for seven weeks… in here… alone… I'm so sorry… it must be horrible… If only I'd known, I would've—"

"No! Stop it! James, listen to me. It's not your baby."

"B-but you said I was the first person that you'd been with since Kyle died—"

"James! For God's sake, please refer to my dead husband as Mr. Knight! You're only sixteen years old! Who do you think you are, coming onto me and ruining my life? You ruined everything by being so fucking irresistible! Fuck all this sexual tension! I hate it! Why can't I just ignore these feelings that I have for you? I should be able to control myself! I should've never let this happen." She bit her lip and cursed some more under her breath. "Hah. I bet you love this, don't you? I'm just another notch in the bedpost of a player like you. Where did you ever learn to treat women like that? I bet you _wish _I were carrying your baby! That would just tickle your premature ego! Well guess what? The name of this baby's father is Simón Rivera."

"W-who the Hell is that?"

"Well, I'm guessing you must've seen him on your way in."

An intense nausea accompanied the realization that Kristen was talking about Dr. Hollywood.

"Yeah, you get it now. I said you were the first guy I'd fucked since Kyle died. That was a lie to turn you on. I've been with Simón for months. We kept it a secret from everyone because we didn't want things to get too serious. It was just sex. Lots and lots of hot sex. Ahaha! You thought you were special. Welcome to the real world. I used you. Now I'm paying for it. So why don't you just leave me alone to rot in prison?"

"No! I can't believe you did this! How didn't I see it before? You running to him so eagerly, leaving your sick daughter alone when she needed you most! You do that a lot, don't you? Did you know that Katie's a fucking basket case with you in jail? She'll probably grow up to be a psychotic whore, with her dad gone and her mom in the slammer. I guess it runs in the family."

Kristen covered her face with her hands and cried painful, caustic tears. "Please, just leave me alone. Isn't it enough that you stole my heart and my freedom? Did you come here to push the knife in further? Why don't you save yourself the trouble and come back tomorrow with a pistol?"

I backed away from her cell as she sniveled and started to gag. I told the guard I was ready to leave and he unlocked the door. We both left her and he turned off the lights, leaving her trapped in a dungeon constructed of her sins and held together with her repentant mortar, lit by the sorry little light bulb swinging from a rusty chain above her head. I stepped out onto the darkened streets of L.A. with only one thing on my mind: alcohol. So I was only sixteen? It sure as Hell didn't ever feel like it anymore.

**Kelly's POV**

"Kelly? It's Kristen."

My heart went cold when I heard her voice. There were so many things I'd wanted to say to her over the last seven weeks; so many times I'd wanted to relive that moment in the hospital when I punched her in the face over and over and over again. I couldn't find the words to say any of those things now.

"You should listen to James. He's right. Hawk killed Gustavo."

I tried to get over my cottonmouth to respond. "What? How do you know?"

"He told me. Right before I helped him frame Freight Train."

I almost dropped my phone. It was just as I'd suspected when Kendall told me they were working together. The puzzle was complete. I was about to faint with emotion. "I… I believe you. You're a foul, evil woman, but I believe you. Now never talk to me again." In my mind I said, _I really shouldn't believe you, considering that you told your son this morning that it was you who killed Gustavo and that this is probably just a new lie you've made up to cover your ass, _but deep inside I knew that she was telling the truth, because I'd already figured it out myself, and that it had taken a lot of guts to tell it to me. And even deeper inside, I was sorry that I'd made her the redheaded red herring in all of this mess. And in the innermost core of my heart of hearts, I wanted her and James to end up together. I closed my phone slowly, sitting down to think. Hawk didn't agree to help Kristen frame Freight Train because she was blackmailing him; Kristen agreed to help Hawk frame Freight Train because he was blackmailing her. _But why… why would Hawk kill Gustavo? They were just rivals, not mortal enemies. Wait a minute… oh my God…_

_"A simple deal between you and me. More of a wager, really. You continue on to October 11th with Big Time Rush under Gustavo's direction, and if all goes well and you meet Griffin's expectation for number of albums sold, he signs the band for a second album. Everyone lives happily ever after. But… if you were to fail in any way to satisfy Griffin's hunger for success and he were to drop your band, or if something were to happen to Gustavo that would leave you without a producer, you would be instantly signed with Hawk Records for your second album and work would begin immediately."_

"No… he never intended on waiting 'til today to take control of Big Time Rush. He killed Gustavo only a couple of hours after he made that deal with me. He just couldn't wait to get his prize. I've been working with Gustavo's murderer for seven weeks, rewarding him for killing my boss. In fact, it was all my fault. If I hadn't been so disloyal and faithless as to take Hawk's insurance plan, Gustavo would still be alive."

Gustavo. He'd done everything for me. He'd given me a job and a chance at a future. There may have been a time leading up to his death when he didn't treat me very well. I have the scars to prove it. But I never wanted him to die. It didn't have to end like that. Besides, the only reason he was beating me back then was because of Hawk and Griffin and the way they made his life Hell. It all went back to them. It always goes back to the rich assholes who think they can play God and not experience the consequences. If they had only treated Gustavo as a person instead of a money-making hit machine, he wouldn't have had to take his stress out on me and I wouldn't have made my deal with the devil to spite him.

"Hawk… you cold-hearted bastard…" I stood up and started pacing around as I talked to myself. "You've never had to know the consequences of your own malevolence. Well I'll show you some goddamn consequences. I'll show you the consequences of taking advantage of Kelly Wainwright, and I'll do it in the name of Gustavo Rocque, God rest his thorny departed soul!" I dialed Hawk's number and he answered in a singsong voice.

"Good evening Kelly! If you're wondering where I am, don't worry yourself. I'm about to start on my way to the hotel right now. If guests start arriving early, just tell them that—"

"I need to talk to you, Hawk."

"Okay, that's fine. We'll talk when I get there."

"Don't bother coming here! The album launch party is canceled!"

"What on Earth are you talking about? I thought you and Rebecca had been planning this party for days. Everyone seemed so excited about it. It was going to be the photo op of the year!"

"Just forget about it. I'll call all the invitees and apologize. James just quit the band, Kendall's been missing all day and Logan and Carlos are AWOL and refuse to answer their phones. We can't celebrate BTR without Big Time Rush. Now where can we meet to talk?"

"Well it does sound awfully important, whatever it is you need to say, so I suppose you can come see me here. I'm in my penthouse at Club Platine. It's number six."

"Where and what is Club Platine?"

"Oh, I'm sorry darling. Of course you're too poor to understand. Just go to the Four Seasons and tell the girl at the front desk that Shaun Hawk wishes to see you. She'll ask me if you're approved and then send you up. It's a very hush-hush thing, very special. Don't mention it to anyone, if you don't mind."

I played along with Hawk's ego-affirming A-list games and did as he said. Before I left the ballroom where the party was supposed to take place, I took one last look around at all that my hard work had accomplished. Perfectly pressed tablecloths. Immaculate bouquets at every table. Streamers. Tinsel. Hell, I even shampooed the carpet. I supposed that the caterers weren't going to give me my money back now that they'd already prepared the spread, but at least I'd bought those poor cater waiters a free dinner. At least I'd done one pleasant deed in my life. I couldn't think of any others. I tore down the streamer at the doors as I walked out. **WELCOME TO THE BIG TIME!** Mr. Dumpster.

I parked in the lot behind the Four Seasons where they kept all the garbage and dirty sheets, under a big fir tree that hid my car perfectly from the highway. I opened up my glove box and dug through all the mounds of spare change, cell phone chargers, bad checks and used tissues and finally felt what I was looking for. I took out the handgun and checked the chamber for bullets. There were only two. That would be enough to bring him to the floor with the first shot and finish him off with the second. It would have to be enough. I would have to be a good shot. I'd never fired a gun before, so the odds didn't seem so great.

"Oh well. It's worth a try, anyway." I stuck the gun in the back pocket of my jeans and pulled my jacket down over it. I looked up at the tall hotel and saw that the several floors at the very top had windows in odd places with unusual lights shining out of them. The walls seemed to be painted a silvery color, which made Club Platine look like the snowcap on a mountain. It didn't seem so awfully secret to me. I was surprised when the elevator actually kept going up after it had reached the sixteenth floor. There were only sixteen buttons on the console. The screen above the doors read, "14," "15," "16," "CP1," "CP2," and then stopped. Hawk's room was the first one on the left on CP2. From the room down the hall, I could hear house music blasting. What I would've given to be attending that party or even the album launch party that I'd planned (even if the band never showed up) instead of coming to my boss' hotel room to murder him for revenge. An eye for an eye, I figured, except that Hawk had taken a lot more than one eye from me and the people I loved. The world _would _be a better place without people like him. In some ways, I was like a superheroine. I was the Catwoman to his... wait a minute; Catwoman doesn't fight crime, does she? She's a criminal herself. She's an amoral hedonist, drunk off the power and lack of responsibility that comes from her alter ego. Bad example, I guess.

My hand was almost on the handle of the door into Hawk's penthouse when I was frozen by fear. It was entirely the worst kind of fear, and that's because I was afraid of myself_. If I invited someone to come and talk to me in my hotel room, and they showed up with a loaded gun hidden in their back pocket, I would be scared out of my mind. _I thought. _Except that I wouldn't know that they had it until they'd already drawn it and probably already shot me, so I would really have no time to be scared of them; I'd only have time to be panicked and confused for a few seconds before I was dead._ _Also,_ I rationalized,_ I'm not a murderer and a manipulative, predatory douchebag like Hawk, so it seems a lot worse that someone would do that to me because I don't really deserve it. Or do I? Gustavo's death was ultimately my fault. No, wait. Gustavo's death was ultimately Hawk's and Griffin's fault. And anyway, what am I going to do after I kill Hawk? I'll have to go on the run like Percy. And once Hawk is dead, there will be no one to convict for Gustavo's murder, so Percy and I will both have to be on the run forever. Oh well, at least we'll be together. We can flee to Mexico and live out our lives in peace and obscurity, far, far away from the Hollywood rat race. That actually sounds kind of nice. _I summoned up all my courage and coolness and put my hand on the handle. _Don't be scared, Kelly. It's only homicide. You're going to go inside, talk to him for a minute, wait until his back is turned and shoot him. As long as you don't miss, you'll be able to go in for the headshot after that. If you do miss, you can try again and then kill him with a chair or something once he's down. If you miss both times, you just shot yourself in the foot and it's time to run away. That would be really stupid. So let's review._

**Plan A: Boom. Boom.**

**Plan B: Boom. Ping. Boom. Chair, chair, chair, chair.**

**Plan C: Boom. Ping. Boom. Ping. GTFO.**

Somehow making that list in my mind only freaked me out more. I shook it out of my head, took a deep breath, and then pushed down on the handle of the door. That's when I realized that it was obviously locked, so I knocked. Hawk answered with a smile. He was wearing a silk bathrobe, which was curious indeed considering he had just been about to leave his penthouse for the launch party, for which he would've been wearing a suit and tie.

"Kelly darling, so glad you found your way to my humble abode. Without any trouble, I hope? The traffic wasn't too bad?" he gestured for me to enter and I stepped nervously across the threshold. I turned to face him as he shut the door behind me, shaking my head as an answer to his question. "Is something wrong? You seem… tense."

I shrugged and backed away from him as he stepped toward me. "I'm just a little frazzled from having to cancel the party, I guess. It's too bad."

"Yes, it certainly is. I'll have to have a stern talk with those boys of ours about responsibility… and obligation. After all, where would they be without us?"

_Well I know where they'd be without you. They'd be a helluva lot better off, that's where. Yet another reason for me to kill you ASAP. _"They'd be back in Minnesota, playing hockey and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner." I hadn't even wanted to say that. It just came out. I'll be damned if Hawk wasn't incredibly easy to conduct small talk with. He had a way of sucking me in with all his politeness and pleasantries.

Hawk laughed mockingly hard at my PB&J comment, which made me reach for the holster of the handgun out of desire to shoot him right in the throat as he guffawed up at the twenty-foot ceiling. I jerked my hand back to its place on my purse as he quieted down, cursing my lack of opportunism. "Would you like something to drink?" he asked, casually meandering to his fully stocked bar.

"Yes, thank you." _No! Aw, shit. Why can't I focus? _"I mean no thank you. Not right now. Not until I say what I came here to say." _Good job. You're on the right track now._

He seemed intrigued by my determination. "Well alright, go ahead and say it then. We're all alone now. You have my undivided attention." He crossed his arms and stared me down.

I gulped and came out with it. "I know that you killed Gustavo!"

His eyes sparked for an instant, and then he started roaring with disingenuous laughter just as he had at my non-joke before. He reached under the bar and pulled out a bottle of scotch whiskey and poured two glasses of it. "Why don't you sit down, take a load off? This is good scotch, I promise. Nothing but the best. You'll feel much better."

I approached the bar and slammed my fist down on its marble surface. "Damn you, Hawk! Why can't you lose your cool? I'm accusing you of murder! Don't deny it! I heard it from your only accomplice!"

He narrowed his eyes. "So Rebecca told you, eh? Well I suppose it was bound to happen, with you two working so closely and chatting all the time. I can forgive her for that. But what am I going to do about you? You're just a little chocolate firecracker."

"Rebecca knows about this too?" I asked incredulously.

"What do you mean? You said you were told by my only accomplice."

"I meant Kristen!"

He frowned, and then shook his head and chuckled slightly, staring down at the drinks as he stirred them. "Oh, Ms. Greene. She was such a good girl for seven weeks. I guess with her trial coming up she's starting to get antsy. What a shame. I'll have to talk to her about that."

"HAWK!" I pounded my fist against the bar again, and then did it a dozen more times because it felt so damn good. "How could you do this without remorse? How could you just go and do this and not even feel bad or guilty or—God, you're so hard to yell at!" he just wouldn't stop smiling at me. He seemed actually amused by my righteous indignation.

"Tell you what, Kelly. Come over here." He grabbed my arm and pulled me around the bar. He posed me in front of him and held my arms to my body to keep me still. "You're not that pretty when you're mad. But when you give in and let yourself go, you're absolutely gorgeous. You don't have to have to worry about what I've done, or what anyone else is doing, or what you should be doing about any of it. Just be here. Just feel the present. Enjoy it. No other moment will ever be exactly the same."

I stared into the eyes of the most evil man on Earth and I couldn't even bring myself to hate him. "Hawk… what the Hell is wrong with me… I came here to kill you. Now I just want to kiss you. You framed Percy, you blackmailed Kristen, you hurt everyone and only helped yourself and you've been lying straight to my face for seven weeks. How can I still trust you? It doesn't make any sense, but when I'm with you, I… I'm almost glad you killed Gustavo. You're a better producer, a better manager, a better businessman and a much better conversationalist than he ever was."

"So then… I suppose I may not have hurt everyone and helped only myself after all. I helped you and the boys, and I'll continue to help you all as long as you're loyal to me. I don't like hurting people, Kelly. I only do it when it's absolutely necessary for the future that I've planned. Gustavo has been in my way for many years. It was time that one of us won the feud and settled the score. What difference does it make to you? You got a new friend to share your workload and a much more understanding boss out of the deal."

"I also got the love of my life running from the police out of the deal!" I protested.

"The love of your life? Freight Train? Oh, Kelly. I think you can do better than that…" he leaned down and pulled me into a kiss. I was maniacally angry for a second, but then I noticed… that it felt good. It felt like I didn't have any choice. I gave in and experienced the present. It was very enjoyable, just as he'd promised. What I didn't notice was that, as he was giving me the most magnificently erotic kiss of my life, we was also opening the latch of the ring on his right hand which was cleverly shaped like a skull and crossbones and pouring the contents of said ring into the glass of scotch meant for me. The design of the ring was clever because, given human nature, a ring clearly fashioned into the universal symbol for poison would be the last one I would ever expect to be filled with Rohypnol. When he broke away from the kiss, I was putty in his hands, and I hadn't even been roofied yet. I'd forgotten all about my assassination mission. I don't remember anything after that kiss. All I know is that I downed the drink that he gave me and blacked out, and when I woke up the next day I was in no position to contemplate where I was or how I'd gotten there. I was only in a position to aim and fire.

But the worst part of it all was that I owed James a hundred bucks.


	25. Chapter 25

**Citrine's POV**

The silence in Apartment 2J after Kendall left was deafening. After he'd told me he was quitting the band, he sat without saying anything else for a while. Feeling awkward and not sure what to do, I started making pancakes. The smell of frying batter seemed to get his gears turning. He got up and started pacing around, then finally sat down at the counter and started talking to me again.

"Katie, I think I've got an idea. If this works, I won't have to quit the band after all."

I put the third pancake on a plate with the others and set them down in front of him.

"Do tell. Want some syrup?"

"Um, no thanks. Some butter would be nice though." I got the butter dish out of the fridge and gave him a knife and a fork. "Thanks. So here's my idea. We need to get away from Hawk and Kelly and all the baggage left over from our days at Rocque Records. That being said—" he took a bite of the pancakes and grunted in approval, "—gosh, these are great. When did you learn to make pancakes like this?"

"About the same time that I learned the words to every hit Broadway song of the last century." That time, of course, was my past life. My mother had taught me to make those pancakes. My sister always hated me for being better than her at making them, because mom had taught her too but she only ever asked me to stand in for her at Sunday brunch when she wasn't feeling up to cooking. Nobody could tell the difference between my pancakes and mom's. I was proud of that. Sophia (that's my sister) often used to resentfully remark that I was our mom's favorite daughter. What she really meant when she said that was that she was the _only _daughter, and that she should automatically be better than me in every feminine respect, and that she shouldn't have to deal with any competition from her faggy brother on those grounds. The truth is I was better than her at cleaning, cooking, singing, arts and crafts, dressing and even at doing hair and makeup. No wonder she resented me. I made her look butch.

"Yeah, I guess you do have a lot of time on your hands. It used to be that when I and the guys were out working as Big Time Rush, you and mom would hang around together or go shopping or whatever. It sucks that you have to be alone all the time now. Maybe if Camille and Jo hadn't disappeared… Anyway, I wish I could make a difference by telling you I'm sorry, but I know I'm not the one you need to talk to." He looked up from his pancakes and tried to smile. "Who knows, maybe mom will be back home in no time. Maybe she'll get community service or probation or something."

Every time Kendall was feeling bad for his sister, I was feeling even worse. In case you were wondering, I do have a conscience. I knew that Katie Knight, the real little girl that was trapped in my subconscious, should've been hearing everything that her brother was saying. I knew that she should've been standing there in the kitchen with him, hearing his condolences and trying to comfort him in return. I just didn't feel _quite _bad enough about it for my guilt to outweigh my desire to be in Kendall's presence every second of every day. In the back of my mind, I was thinking about reassuming my former identity. I was hoping that I could be back in my old body by the end of the day. I was praying that I would still be able to be in Kendall's presence every second of every day. As long as he never found out about the switcheroo, it seemed perfectly plausible. And Kenny was right; I did have a lot of time on my hands, only I didn't spend it learning new show tunes and recipes. I spent it thinking about him and looking over my shoulder for Buddha Bob. I also spent it singing along to every episode of the first season of Glee, which my brother's sweetheart band mates got me as a kind of "your life is shitty so here's a present" present. All of those other things I already knew. It's not often that you meet an eight-year-old with nineteen years of experience. It often confused people that I knew twice as many things as I should've known, even with Katie having been such a precocious child and with me employing all the acting skills at my disposal to give the impression of being her.

"Kendall, you don't have to sugarcoat this for me. I know that mom could go away for a while. Like long enough that she'll be sending me a congratulatory letter when I graduate high school. I'm stronger than you think. You don't have to worry about me getting along. As long as I have you, I'll be just peachy." I patted his hand and smiled reassuringly. It seemed like the type of thing Katie would've said. I thought I was doing her character justice. When I doubted myself, I just remembered the nightmare of Keanu Reeves in _Little Buddha _and suddenly I felt like Meryl Streep.

"Katie… you're amazing." He marveled at my resilience.

"Only because I've got an amazing older brother." I gushed. "Now tell me your idea already."

"Oh, right. Well I was thinking that it would be too hard to start from the ground up with a new record company, so it might be a good idea to salvage whatever relationship Big Time Rush has left with Griffin."

"Griffin?" I exclaimed, surprised. "I thought he disowned you all when Gustavo died."

"He did, he did. But here's my angle: Mercedes Griffin loves me. She's been crushing all over me since our date at the Chocolate Warehouse. She's my way in." I grinned at him. "What? Don't you think I can work her? If I can work her, she'll have no problem working Griffin."

"Oh no, I'm sure you can butter her biscuit. You could butter any girl's biscuit you like. You're just so cute when you're making seductive plans." I pinched his cheek. "You're a lot more charming than you give yourself credit for. Those eyes, that smile… you're like a heart-melting alien death ray."

He punched my arm playfully. "Ew, Katie you're so creepy!" he laughed. He took his plate over to the sink and started rinsing it off. "Most guys don't have to deal with their little sisters being all up on their balls like I do. I think you watch too much TV." He turned around and looked at me. "Maybe I should send you to a convent. Then you'd finally be out of my hands."

"Ah! You're so mean!" I rolled up the newspaper on the counter and starting hitting him with it while he ran away and yelled, "To a nunnery, go!" When I had him backed against the front door, he cried uncle and I let up. "Alright then cowboy, go wrangle yourself an heiress already."

"Wish me luck?" he asked.

"You won't need it." I said, and went to my room to read my new Pop Star magazine.

And then the deafening silence. It made me realize how empty my life as Katie was without Kendall in it. The truth was that I'd never actually wanted to be a short white girl with the physique of a ragdoll and a head of hair that put me in constant danger of being scalped by a vicious drag queen looking to improve her Cher routine. I'd only wanted to be treated like one. The problem was never with how I saw myself. I always felt like a beautiful woman on the inside. The problem was with how other people saw me. I just wanted guys to open doors for me and buy me pretty earrings and sniff around me at bars, buying me drinks that I would never ingest out of consciousness that they were probably concocted by sociopathic rapists. It had always been my dream to be seen that way, to hold the place of the skinny, sexy diva in society. As Katie, I realized how shallow that dream was. If my mother had given birth to a Katie instead of a Wally, would she have loved me more? Of course she would've. Would it have made my life a million times easier? Sure. But that was never going to happen. The damage was done, and no matter how many times I stole a new body, my mind would always have the same dirty old baggage from growing up the first time as a self-loathing Chinese tranny. I would never escape myself. The truth was that all I ever needed was for one person, just one, to tell me that I was the most beautiful girl they'd ever seen, and I would be able to endure a whole lifetime of "excuse me sir" and "what's up dude." Then I would have closure. With just one ally by my side, I would have the courage to face a hateful and ignorant world. That was the future that I envisioned with Kendall once I woke up from my coma.

Several hours later, Kendall called the house phone and I picked up eagerly.

"Katie? How are you doing?"

Hearing his voice instantly anesthetized my mind and body. I was so addicted to that feeling. It had only been seven weeks and I was already a crack head for Kendall Knight. "Great! Fine. How'd things go with Mercedes?"

"Things actually went really well with Mercedes. We had a plan all worked out. But I couldn't go through with it. We had lunch with Logan and Carlos and they helped me realize that my heart was never invested in the idea of going back to Griffin. I was just avoiding the real issue."

"The real issue?" I was a little scared to hear what he'd come up with now. He was in a dramatic mood and that never ends well.

"The truth is that whether I'm making records with Hawk or Mercedes—though God forbid I would've gone through with that; Mercedes Records would've been a disaster—Big Time Rush will never be okay for me again."

"So we're back where we were this morning on the kitchen floor."

"No. I've made a new decision. We're getting out of California."

"Wait, what? Are you serious? Where are we going?"

"We're going home, of course! You've been saying you wanted to be at the next Knight family reunion in Brookeview all year. I think that's a great idea. We can stay at Aunt Kim's house. Haven't you missed her Christmas cookies?"

"Uh, yeah. Christmas cookies, sure. So when exactly are you planning this trip for?"

"Tonight. As soon as your things are packed and we've had the chance to say goodbye."

"Kendall! Tonight? What about mom's trial?"

"I was thinking we should wait until she's had her day in court too, but then I realized… Katie, mom's trial starts on your birthday. There was no way in Hell I was going to let you be there whether we were in the state or not. You don't need to be exposed to all that shit. James will be there and they're going to tell everything. It's not for kids. You deserve to have fun on your birthday. It'll just be easier to do that if we're with family in Minnesota and not running around this termite nest we call L.A." Once again Kenny threw me a curveball. Here I was, thinking I'd be back inside my old body by the end of the night, and now he's telling me that I should pack my bags to go visit a bunch of people that I didn't miss because I'd never met or even heard of them before. "So… are you with me? I'll be there in a few minutes."

"I—I'm with you. Of course I'm with you. To the ends of the Earth. I'll start packing the essentials then."

**Jane's POV**

I looked out across the dining room of the Glory Panda and watched my customers gorge themselves on unidentifiable meat in nondescript sauce, choking their precious arteries with MSG. It never ceases to amaze me how willing people are to be euthanized. Life has long since lost its status as a valuable resource. I told Sophie to close down the kitchen and stop letting people in so that we could be closed within the hour. It has to be a gradual process, closing, at a buffet; once the supply of people and food is cut off, what's left of the two defeats itself and there's rarely any food or hunger left over. Sad to say, but I've been in the business long enough to have it down to an art. Rudy stopped helping me with anything a long time ago. He does the bills and sleeps the day away in our apartment above the restaurant. Most people are surprised to learn that my husband is almost twenty years older than me. I needn't disclose my age here, but that makes Rudy an old man. Really, most Americans can't estimate the age of the average Asian person within five years of accuracy. We play a whole different ball game when it comes to aging. I met my husband when I was sixteen. He was in his mid-thirties. We'd both lived in China all our lives, where a marriage like ours was socially normal. It was, in case you didn't guess, an arranged marriage. I suppose you'd suspect me to have a lot of regrets about my life. I suppose I do. But if you're looking to that idea as an excuse for the villainous things that I do, just stop. I don't need to be excused. Everything I do is for a good reason. Besides, I'm a moral nihilist. I don't need a reason. Back in the time of this story, I was still flirting with liberal Buddhism, but I've long since forgotten about that naïve goody-goody "path of righteousness" garbage. The "path of righteousness" is a path to heartbreak and failure. So anyway, at this time I was still doing most of the restaurant management on my own, but I was training Sophie in all the tricks and it wouldn't be long before she took over for me. If she hadn't picked up the slack at the Glory Panda, I would've just as well preferred that Sophie was never born. She has no natural talent. She's always been more trouble than she's worth. The only thing I've really accomplished in raising her is bringing into the world another bitter, vicious woman like me. I'd always hoped for better from my children. I was starting to realize that Citrine was my only chance.

I brushed past the curtain of beads across the entrance to a hallway hidden in the back of the restaurant, at the end of which was a locked door to which only I had the key. Once inside my sanctuary, I locked the door again behind me. I lit candles all around the room and then left a few sticks of bamboo incense burning on a plate on the floor beside the pillow filled with sand from the Gobi desert on which I would sit. From a shelf on the farthest wall, I took down a glass orb and set it on its special ivory pedestal made from the tusks of a one-thousand-year-old Asian elephant. One must be very particular about casting spells and whatnot. Witchcraft isn't for amateurs. I'd finally gotten myself all wrapped up in magical scarves and deep-earth crystals and was about to use my third-eyeglass to peep on my daughter's progression through my perfect plan when there was a knock on my door. I explicitly forbid anyone from ever knocking on the door of my sanctum. I crept over to the door furiously and asked what on Earth could present such an emergency that one would think it appropriate to disturb me in there.

"A teenage boy just showed up in tears demanding that he speak to the manager."

I unlocked the door, then cracked it ever so slightly and stole a look at my visitors. Sophie scowled at me with her usual crabby countenance and, aloof several feet behind her, stood Logan Mitchell. He may not have been acquainted with me, but I knew him very well. I bade my daughter leave and she rolled her eyes at my secrecy as she brushed by Logan on her way back to the dining room.

"Come in, lad… don't be a stranger." I opened the door wider and motioned for him to enter. He did, cautiously, and I shut and locked the door behind him. "I hope you don't mind sitting on the floor. It's actually a very fine oriental rug I have here. It was my grandmother's. But then, if I were to tell the story of every relic in this room we would be in here 'til Halloween." I sat down on the sandy pillow and smiled warmly up at him.

He seemed mildly soothed by my motherly demeanor but still desperate for… for what? I plucked at the surface of his mind, trying to catch a fish of shallow water. I caught a few minnows: Carlos, fortune, spell, love, lie, et cetera… in any case, he was obviously savvy to his predicament. He sat down cross-legged on the other side of the crystal ball and stared hard into my eyes.

"It's you, isn't it?" he asked darkly. "You're behind all of it."

I held my hand out in front of him. "Give me your hand, son. I'll tell you your fortune."

Sensing that he would have to play my game for a little longer before I told him the rules, and being increasingly intimidated by me as my energy field settled in around him, he complied. I brought his hand into the light of a candle and turned his palm to face the flame so I could decipher the lines.

"Your path… is one of great scope, as you can see by this large curve that spans the hand. Many trials await you, and your misfortune will be scrutinized thanks to the voyeuristic hunger of the masses as you try to escape your own fame. You will suffer a great loss, but it will be the only way for you to find what you've always wanted. Though you will live out your life with a tragic burden, you will never be alone. True love awaits you. Though your path will cross many others, the only person that really matters…" I looked up from his palm and into his eyes. "…has been with you all the time."

Tears ran down his face. "I… I thought I loved Carlos. I was finally starting to accept what we had. But it was all just complacency. I had the tools at my disposal to see through the illusion the whole time. I just didn't want to. I wanted it to be real. Deep down, I'd always wanted Carlos to love me. When he suddenly did, right after we left this restaurant seven weeks ago, I kind of ran with it. I've never had a real boyfriend. Sometimes the smartest people just can't control their own lonely selves when it comes to relationships. I'm one of those. There were moments when I had my eyes open to the falsehood of the whole affair, but I suppressed my own rationality out of fear. I feared this—this moment where it all comes to light—this moment where I'm left alone in the snow with one less best friend and a hermetically sealed heart."

"Hush now. Everything will turn out well in the end."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Your fortune… from the cookie you were given seven weeks ago… do you have it?"

"No…" he shook his head and regained some composure. "I lost it. I left it in a taxi and I think one of my friends found it."

I was surprised that he knew that James had his fortune. "Why do you think that?"

"I don't know… I just had this weird vision of him in the same taxi pulling it out of the seat."

I patted his hand and gave it back to him. "A vision, indeed. You are a gifted individual. You have a psychic intuition. Your powers are poorly controlled, but you have potential."

"Psychic intuition…? No, I don't think so. I don't believe in psychics and fortune telling, anyway."

"Logan…" he gave me an uncomfortable look as he realized I'd divined his name. "If you truly disbelieved in the supernatural, you wouldn't have come to me for answers. Now that I've accumulated some sense of your spirit, I trust you enough to speak with candor. Do you want to know the truth?"

"Yes, please! I've been so confused. If you know anything, you have to tell me."

"Oh dear, I don't know just _anything_. I know _everything_. The spiked fortune cookies, however… were not my doing. You are, of course, aware of the waitress that worked at this restaurant up until seven weeks ago, when she was attacked by your landlord and put into a coma."

"Citrine Hu! We found her on the steps of Rocque Records and Kendall's been visiting her at the hospital ever since. It's kind of an obsession of his, actually."

"Well, she's my daughter." It was the first time I'd ever said that. Citrine Hu… my daughter. At first, it had felt terrible to let go of Walter forever. But by that time, it was starting to feel wonderful to accept her for who she was, for who she'd always been.

"Oh, so you're—"

"Jane Hu. I'm the manager of this restaurant; you've come to the right person. My daughter and I are just two of a long line of women with extraordinary abilities. In China, our blood is legendary."

"But that woman that led me in—the maître d'—she said she was your daughter as well. So she has these powers too?"

I shook my head shamefully. "Your deductive reasoning is flawless, Mr. Mitchell, but heredity weaves a funny sort of web, especially when it comes to things like this. Sophia has no powers. She's never showed any sign of being a clairvoyant, an empath, a medium, or a sorceress. She's a dud. That's why she's being groomed for business and not…" I motioned around at all the candles and charms. "…this." He nodded slowly and stared off into the darkness behind me, biting his nails. "Logan, you'll be wise to listen to me because I'm not one to repeat myself. Citrine's powers have only recently begun to manifest. They are unpredictable and wavering in strength, much like her motives. That night that she was your waitress… do you remember anything about her?"

He closed his eyes and rubbed them tensely as he thought. "She seemed troubled… aloof; maybe even longing. I remember now! She stared at Kendall several times. That's when she had that look of longing."

"Observant as ever. I like how you think. To come out with it, everything that's happened to you and your friends for the last seven weeks has been Citrine's fault. Or thanks to Citrine. However you look at it. She put a spell on all of you, and she doesn't even know it. That's how strong her powers are—they've got a mind of their own. They don't always work because her mind wants them to, or because it's rational or well-advised. They often spring into action based on what she's feeling. What she really wants, what's in her heart, what she desperately longs to do, these are voices that my daughter has always been forced to ignore. That suppression of her true self and the transformation of what should've been reality into a flowery fantasy is what eventually made her latent abilities fight back. Think of her powers like an external immune system. Just like the one that we all have on the inside; they're constantly working for the betterment of their host, sometimes in ways beyond our comprehension or control. So yes, those prophetic, spellbinding fortunes were Citrine's doing."

"So it really was the fortunes. I could never get myself to believe that they were controlling us, even though the messages that were on them seemed to predict what was happening to us so well. And the way we were paired up! I just realized while I was driving here that the numbers on the back of the slips, they spell out the name of our partners. I'm sure everyone else's was that way too."

"I'm curious, Logan, as to what led you to finally realize all of this."

He stared into the flame of the candle and blinked some tears out of his eyes. "Carlos and I, we ran away from the city together, just to get away from all the drama and pandemonium. Anyway, I found his fortune in his pocket. It was the first time I'd held it since the night he got it. As soon as it was in my hands, I felt this terrible epiphany wash over me. I knew that I'd never be able to lie to myself about Carlos again. I knew that the emotional curse was broken, that this veil of infatuation was lifted, and that I could no longer see my best friend through rose-tinted glasses."

"Ah… so that's how to break the spell." I nodded and chuckled at the simplicity of it. He regarded me questioningly. "It's just a matter of trading. A person doesn't have to possess their fortune for it to affect them, as the fortune doesn't affect by possession but by being held just once. It stands to reason that a person could be affected by any number of fortunes, but if one were to come into contact with one which commanded one to connect to oneself, that self-realization would clear them of all other spells. Of course, the only way to be sure of this is to test it out on one of the others…"

"James!" Logan shouted and sat up suddenly.

"Oh yes, I wonder about James. Perhaps, having your fortune, he'll start to have feelings for Carlos, but from what I can tell, the fortune is nonspecific as to what connection should be made to the inscribed person, just that that connection must be strong. The only way one would fall in love with Carlos by holding the fortune that you got…would be if that person were already in love with Carlos… somewhere deep inside. Even though James fell in love with Mrs. Knight, and Citrine fell in love with Kendall, and you fell in love with Carlos, the idea of these fortunes being like arrows from Cupid's bow is disproven by the final couple, Katie and Peridot."

"Peridot? Who's that?"

"I imagine you'll find out soon enough. The point is that their connection was a spiritual, sororal one, not a romantic one. In any case, the connection made by the fortunes never goes any further than the preexisting maximum potential for intimacy that the holder has for the inscribed."

"So what you're saying is that, given optimal conditions, Carlos and I could get back to the place that Citrine's spells took us, going the natural way?"

"Certainly, Logan! There's so much hope for you and Carlos. With enough time and care, your relationship will grow to be a handsome thing. The key is that you can't be ashamed of how you feel. You probably want to tell me that it's different for gay couples, but I know it's not. I have the sixth sense, Logan. I don't see people with my eyes. I look deeper, and I see the color and texture of their auras, and I understand them in a way that most people take years to understand another, if they ever do. The only reason that you think that your homosexual relationship can't be just as successful as any heterosexual one is that you face so much opposition from our society. Let me tell you, son, something my mother told me. A seed can grow in any soil so long as its face is pointed toward the sun. You've got all the sunshine you need. Carlos' love is enough to nourish a million flowers. Just focus on that. Don't worry about the worms crawling in the dirt below you. Just keep reaching for that higher ground."

Logan smiled and showed all his perfectly straight, white teeth. He took on a whole new character when he allowed himself to be happy. I could tell that he tried not to—let himself be happy, that is. He's one of those down-trodden people, you see, and Citrine is too. All their lives, as they grew up, they were punished for being happy and rewarded for being miserable. When you're unusual, that's the way people treat you. So they come to see being miserable and invisible as good, safe things. When they're happy and honest, they get scared. When I reflect on the way things are, I never forget them. They are the casualties. They are the people who have to do everything that normal people have to do, all while being told that they don't have as much right to live. They live in every country. They always have taken and always will take their burden as it comes to them, without complaint. I know that I screwed up Citrine more than anyone else during her childhood. I was the worst kind of parent. I played a huge role in what she became, and I take responsibility for that now that I see the error of my ways. No, I don't mean that I played a huge role in her being transsexual; I mean that I was the one that made her this chaotic self-destructive wrecking ball of a person with an unquenchable thirst for affection. Her father, naturally, didn't help, but a lack of parenting is never as damaging as a preponderance of terrible parenting.

"You're right, Mrs. Hu. I have always had these feelings for Carlos. I'm just so… I'm so used to being in control, and to keeping everything compartmentalized and at its own safe distance from me. Love doesn't fit into my view of the world. I've been fighting off the only thing that could ever save me. I _want_ to be with Carlos! I really do, but not if he doesn't feel the same. That's why I have to get my fortune back from James and give it to Carlos so that his spell is broken. Once I've told him everything about the magic and how I really feel, we'll be in the right place to start a real relationship. Or not. God, I hope so."

I patted his hand and nodded in approval. "Go then, you rascal! Get your man! Don't waste time and opportunities worrying about what could turn out bad, when there's so much good on the other side of a leap of faith."

He thanked me and we stood up together. I unlocked the door so that he could get out, and we said our goodbyes before he happily hurried away. I wished I could be happy with him, but alas; ignorance is bliss, and a woman with my capabilities is never ignorant. The bliss I should've felt for having just helped Logan save his relationship with Carlos, one of the best things I've ever done, was shattered by the knowledge that I'd just sent that boy happily into the worst disaster of his life. Something abominable—and totally unnecessary—was about to occur, but if I tried to stop it I knew that I would be changing the future in a catastrophic way. It was anguish of the worst kind, to sit in my dark little room and feel his pain and loss as it happened. I try so hard to convince myself that it's not my job to play superhero, but it drives me crazy when I think about all the tragedies that keep our world turning. Logan, a brilliant fellow he was, but not so self-aware after all. He failed to understand that his spell had been broken since only seconds after it was cast. When Logan took Carlos' fortune from him at dinner to peruse it and compare it to his own, his spell was broken. Carlos took Logan's fortune from him right after he got it, too, so Carlos had never been under any kind of spell. They were non-issues, the fortunes. Everything that had played out between Logan and Carlos had been completely natural. Logan, second-guessing his feelings left and right out of an inherent tendency toward self-denial and Carlos, having his feelings always affirmed by Logan's hesitancy and rejection because he didn't claim to deserve anything more. But by allowing Logan to believe that it had all been a magic trick, I'd saved him. By pawning off all of the problems that he'd been experiencing with Carlos on what amounted to a bad acid trip, Logan would be able to start fresh with his soul mate with brand new certainty and appreciation.

So I'd done one good thing. I have my moods, after all. If it helps you believe this story, I should point out that even when I am playing nice, I'm still playing dishonestly. In that moment, I was intent on only one thing, and that was getting Citrine back. I had to have her in my life. She would never learn to control her powers without my mentorship, and there was such a multitude of secrets that I forbade myself to take to my grave. In China, the phoenix represents the Empress, the holiest woman in the world. It is the symbol of female divinity. Citrine and I have the blood of the phoenix. We are sister goddesses. It is a most sacred bond. I had to get her back, to reform her into my apprentice, to make her my life's work, to make amends for how I'd ruined her and denied her happiness. But she would never come back to me—not unless she had no choice. She hated me for what I'd done, and rightfully so, but I couldn't allow that to get in the way of her training. It would be a dishonor to our ancestors if Citrine did not go about her ascendance in the traditional way. So that's where my plan came in—the awful, sinister plan that backfired right in my face in the end. I see now that trying to control Citrine was a mistake. I see now that she is more determined to use her powers to attain her dreams than I ever was. I regret what I did back then. I've changed a lot, now that I'm in the autumn of my existence. The greatest wisdom comes from the greatest wickedness.

Alone again, I reapplied all my jewels and accoutrements and refocused my energy on my crystal ball. There I saw my daughter, just as I'd desired.

"We're getting out of California." Kendall's voice told her through the telephone.

"I—I'm with you. Of course I'm with you. To the ends of the Earth. I'll start packing the essentials then."

"No!" I yelped, breaking my trance. "This is all wrong! I have to put a stop to this. If I allow Citrine to go with Kendall to Minnesota in Katie's body, she may never come back...!"


	26. Chapter 26

**Amber's POV**

I swallowed my third martini in one gulp and slid the glass down the bar toward the bartender deridingly. He was about to shake up another cosmopolitan when I stopped him and took the glass back so that I could bite the olive off of the little plastic sword. He rolled his eyes at me and left. I shrugged and was about to put my head down for a power nap when my favorite song started. I shot straight up and hopped off my bar stool, waddling onto the dance floor and singing along.

"Oh na na! What's my name? What's my name? What's my na-a-ame?" I twirled and bobbed and flopped around, getting dizzy and disoriented. Don't get me wrong; I'm a first-class dancer, but once I get tipsy I'm just a first-class spectacle. I tried grinding on some random guys, but they were all avoiding me so I just had to pop and lock and do the retarded octopus all alone. As I was getting into the second chorus, I started to feel lightheaded and had to steady myself on a stripper pole. I didn't want to waste the opportunity for one last hurrah, though, so I did my best to skip back into the fray and do a flip, but ended up just tripping and falling forward as the flashing disco tiles rushed toward my face. To my amazement, I felt no pain. I was suspended in midair. I looked up and saw a tall male figure whose face was obscured by the spotlight shining above it, shadowy and mysterious, and holding me up by my armpits. Then I passed out fast.

When I woke up, I was seated in a booth in the back of the nightclub with my torso leaning against the brick wall. I straightened myself out too fast and got a rush of pain in my head. A teenager came around the corner and smiled at me as he approached the table. He sat down with two drinks and set one of them in front of me. It was a ginger ale. I scoffed at it.

"How are you feeling? You kinda took a spill on the dance floor a minute ago." he reminded me.

"Yeah, I remember. Are you the guy that caught me?"

"Oh, yeah. Just a lucky catch. Right place, right time, y'know." he smiled. _Impressive. _I thought. _He's so sweet. He's like one of those really cute gay flight attendants in first class that says he's not gay, so you let him have his way in the bathroom after he serves the pretzels even though you're never really convinced. Lucky catch… right place, right time indeed. _

"Just 'cause I passed out once doesn't mean you have to cut me off…" I whined, frowning down at the ginger ale. "But then, if you're buying, I guess this is okay."

"Well, sorry about that, but if I'd tried to buy anything stronger they probably would've carded me and I'm… not quite twenty-one yet… not even close, actually."

"Oh really…?" he was getting to me by then. I kept asking myself what his angle could be. He didn't seem to be propositioning me for sex in the bathroom. Not even a little bit. He wasn't trying to sell me drugs or get me drunk. What kind of guy was he, then? _Ah, a teenager. He's just naïve. After playing the nice guy enough times, he'll come around. Someday he'll be just like the others. He's got looks, he's got charisma, and he's got all the right moves. Once he figures out that he can get what he wants without ringing around the rosy, he'll abandon all this childish foreplay. _"So how old are you?"

"Sixteen." I must've looked surprised, because he clicked his tongue and stared awkwardly at the table afterward.

"Hey, as long as we're being honest, I'm not quite twenty-one either." He raised his eyebrows and watched my face hopefully.

"You're underage too? No way!" he lit up.

I cackled in delight, all the more because he was actually posing the question and not just flattering me in his cheesy way. "Honey, you're funny. Either the light bulbs in this room need to be replaced or your contacts do. I'm twenty-nine." I enunciated the _nine_, because it was over half his age.

"Oh." he sat back and squinted. "I would've guessed twenty-two at the most."

"Really? Well I guess I'm just an old bag of bones in your eyes then."

Then it was his turn to laugh at me. He could barely quiet himself down long enough to address my confusion. "If you knew why I was here, you would feel a lot younger."

"Hmm, I feel a story coming on. I love this kind. It ends terribly, doesn't it?"

"About as terrible as it gets. But… I think I'm gonna need a real drink if I'm gonna get through it all."

"Awe, you need me to go buy our drinks because you're afraid of being kicked out! God, I haven't played this silly game in years. It reminds me of when I was fourteen and sneaking into bars."

"I'm sixteen."

"Right. So what's your point?"

"Never mind. Can you just get me whatever's on tap?" he held out a twenty dollar bill as I slid out of the booth.

"Listen to you and your bar jargon. How precious!" I ruffled his thick hair patronizingly and went back to the bar. The bartender asked me if I thought I'd had enough and I told him to do his job and watch the trains wreck like everybody else. When he walked away, I happened to glance up at the TV in the corner and did a double-take as I recognized the exact same pretty boy that was funding my beer run. "Hey! Garcon! Turn up that television set over there!"

"Do it your own damn self." The bartender said, throwing the remote control at me. I caught it, stuck my tongue out at him and hurried over to the TV to turn the volume all the way up to maximum, though I could still barely hear it over all the pounding bass and piercing snare coming from the DJ's booth. The local news anchorwoman was telling a story with my cute teeny-bopper guy's face in the corner.

"The trial is set to begin on Saturday. Their first album, BTR, was released today, so whether the trial of band mate Kendall's mother for sleeping with James will affect the band's rapport on their upcoming and much-anticipated world tour remains to be seen. "

"BTR… Big Time Rush. That's one of Shaun's groups! So this James kid… he's under contract with the Hawk. That couldn't be more perfect! Holy shit, I've struck gold!"

I grabbed the drinks off the bar and threw the remote back at the bartender along with James' money. When I got back to the table, James eagerly took his draft and smiled brightly as he put his lips to the glass. I smiled too, much more earnestly now that I realized what I'd stumbled upon. Why was I so glad to have found, or rather to have been found by James Diamond? Well, after the Barbie Bitches trounced the Pussycat Dolls in what we thought would be our final dance battle, the Pussycat Dolls were signed onto Rocque Records. You already know that. What you don't know is that, as soon as Hawk heard about Gustavo having a promising new girl power band on his label, he retaliated by signing the Barbie Bitches to _his _label. That's right; me and my girls were signed onto Hawk Records and recorded several songs in his studios. The only problem was, of course, that the Barbie Bitches couldn't sing. We were a street dance crew with no musical talent whatsoever, and if Hawk hadn't specifically sought us out and offered us a huge sum of money to work for him, which he did only because we were the victorious archrivals of the Pussycat Dolls and he hoped that pitting us against them would cause the Pussycat Dolls (and Gustavo, by default) to fail, we would never have attempted to be recording artists at all. In fact, we were perfectly content with being the baddest chicks on the L.A. disco scene, loved and feared by all. Needless to say, Hawk became incredibly frustrated with us, as no amount of editing in production could make our voices palatable, so as soon as he found out that Gustavo had terminated the Pussycat Dolls' contract, he gave us the boot too. So it was that the Barbie Bitches, with me still at the helm, made our inglorious return to the streets, but we had our reputation repaired before long. All it took was utterly obliterating a few rookie crews who thought that rainbow sequins, body glitter and avant-garde dancing shoes were all it took to master the art.

Then came that night at the end of August in 2010 when Nicole Scherzinger dared to show her face at Club 'Cuda. I guess she thought that it had been enough years since she was annihilated on the roof that she could just waltz back in with her crew and expect the Barbie autocracy to give her peaceful leave. She was dead wrong. The Barbie Bitches owned the lioness' share of all classy clubs in Hollywood at that time, and we tirelessly made our rounds through all of them, every night, just to make sure that there weren't any amateurs loitering around that we had not yet defeated. Imagine our chagrin when we discovered that not only were the Pussycat Dolls partying in the very place where their dance crew status had been vaporized forever, but they had been doing so under our noses for months! The Bitches had no choice. We prepared to trounce the Dolls one last time. But I was apprehensive. I knew that the Pussycat Dolls had become internationally famous in the time since our last battle, and underneath all my unconditional self-confidence I felt that the possibility of the Barbie Bitches losing was very real. Our lives would be over if we lost. It just wasn't an option. The Dolls, after all, had been allowed an infinite supply of professional training for dancing onstage by the most elite trainers in the business, and the Bitches were still a self-contained machine that fabricated and rehearsed all its own material. Compared to the Dolls, we were indie. So we did what we had to do. We took the Dolls out of the game. I had my girls knock them out and tie them up in the basement of the club so that they'd be out of the way. Once the dance battle was seven versus one, I knew that I could finally destroy Nicole once and for all.

But it wasn't meant to be! Just as we had Nicole and her pathetic backup dancers beaten, a mysterious figure appeared from the mist. Gazpacho Xenon, alias Mr. X, the most legendary dancer in the world, took Nicole's side and showed us such mind-warping choreography that we were forced to flee from the club in awe and terror. To imagine how trounced we would have been by Xenon's rebuttal if we had dared to fight back is a thing of dread. The Barbie Bitches ran off into the night, and I never saw my sisters again. I was on my own from that point on… but I could not let such a victory go unpunished for Nicole Scherzinger. Once I was sure that Mr. X was gone, I crept back to the parking lot beside Club 'Cuda and waited for my prey to throw herself into my clutches. When Nicole came out to her empty limo and realized that her Dolls were missing, that's when I pounced. I bound her and threw her into the back of my shitty old jeep. So if you were wondering where Nicole has been for the last seven weeks of this story, why she went missing and who was responsible, there's your partial, dissatisfying answer.

Now back to Club 'Cuda on October 11th. I've been scraping by, eating away at my meager savings for seven weeks, being completely out of work with my dance crew disbanded. Getting drunk to relieve my misery, I fall into the arms of James Diamond. Once I finally realize who he is, the plan comes together in my mind. All I had to do was kidnap him and steal him away to my headquarters, where I'd hold him hostage from Hawk. Hawk, knowing that Big Time Rush is the fattest cash cow he's ever milked, and knowing equally well that Big Time Rush would be rendered utterly unprofitable in the absence of its prettiest boy, and that Hawk Records would be rendered utterly unprofitable in the absence of its prettiest band, would be forced to comply with all of my demands! The first of my demands in my grand ransom, of course, would be that Hawk signs me for a lifelong, unbreakable recording contract, securing for myself a healthy salary for as long as I should live! That meant no more mustard sandwiches! No more bounced checks! No more sandpapery toilet paper! That meant it was all diamonds and caviar for me from then on! I really had struck gold!

"Feel any better?" I asked with feigned sympathy as James wiped the foam off his face.

"Not yet…" he answered, seeming like he didn't much enjoy the flavor of his beer. "By the time I do, I hope I'll be used to the taste of this poison."

"I hate to break it to you dearie, but it never tastes any better. Your troubles only get worse, which makes the liquor seem sweeter by comparison. I can attest to that." I laid my hand gently over his and he looked up at me mystifyingly. It was going to be hard to throw this lovely man into the back of my shitty old jeep. _Perhaps… _I thought, _perhaps I won't have to. Perhaps he'll come with me willingly. He is, after all, a teenage boy looking for a night of comfort. It's been a while since I comforted anyone. It's also been a while since I played my hand in the game of seduction… but how hard could it be? I'm an attractive woman. I've kept up my Barbie Bitch style. I'm not exactly a bombshell, but I am blonde, and my curves are… above average. It's pretty obvious that my self-esteem isn't, though._

"I just realized that you never told me your name." he said, never letting up with his smoldering brown eyes.

"No, you didn't. It's Amber. Amber Simms. Nice to meet you… and thanks for saving my face a few minutes ago."

"Hey, it was no problem. Besides, it was well worth it." I smiled, thinking that he was finally hitting on me, and then he held up the glass of beer. "For this, I mean. I don't know how I would've gotten a drink without you."

"I'm sure you could've gotten any girl in this bar to buy you a drink with a flash of that smile."

"Oh… thanks. I wasn't expecting that. You're really nice."

I was caught off guard. Was he complimenting my… personality? "Did you just call me nice?"

"Yeah. Is that a problem?"

"No, it's not. It's just… wow. I can't remember the last time I felt nice."

"You should try it more often. I can tell you're a lot prettier when you're not trying to be tough."

He was right. What was it about him that gave him the ability to read me like a book? He was wise beyond his years… and I was flirtatious beyond mine. James, he was just so young and vivacious and full of this invigorating energy. He just radiated it, even when his heart was breaking. Somehow, I had to get closer. I didn't just want to feel him. I wanted to be a part of him. I'd never been so drawn into someone before. He's one of those people that remind me of everything that's right about the world. In the years since I was a starry-eyed teenager like him, I'd forgotten those special wisps of truth that seem to fall only from the mouths of babes. I scooted around the table so I'd be next to him on the seat. He watched me, surprised.

"It's kind of cold in here." I lied to excuse my bold move.

"Yeah, I guess it is. It's snowing pretty hard outside, but they say it's going to get worse. More snow, more ice. They're calling it a blizzard."

"Huh… I really should've brought a coat then, shouldn't I have?"

"Don't worry about it." he took off his furry hoodie, which was barely enough to keep someone alive in weather such as we were having that night, and put it around my shoulders. I guess he was picking up on all my cues. Still, things weren't moving fast enough for me.

"James…"

"What?"

"Don't you think we should get outta here before the storm gets too bad?"

"Yeah, I guess so—hey! Wait a minute. How do you know my name?"

_Shit. How am I ever going to get him tied up if I can't even get my story straight? I know! I'll be honest this time so that he trusts me from now on. _"I… I'm sorry. I should've told you before. I saw you on the news while I was getting our drinks. They were talking about what happened with you and your band mate's mom… it sounds like one helluva shitstorm to me." _Amber, for God's sake, can't you try to talk a little classier than that? Men don't appreciate ladies with mouths like sailors._

"One helluva shitstorm… hah. You got that right." He swirled his beer around in the glass and stared into it bitterly. I could tell he was shutting down on me. I was trying to think of ways to save the night when he did it for me. "Y'know what, Amber? You're right. It is cold in here, and the music's too loud, and it's way too crowded. So let's bolt. Your place or mine?" Now Mr. Diamond was speaking my language.

"Yours." I blurted out, without even thinking. _No, no, no! You have to take him back to your place so that you can tie him up and hold him for ransom! Do you want to be poor forever? _I thought about the question for a moment, and then answered myself. _Right at this moment, better sensibilities, I don't really care. If I can only be with James Diamond for one night, I'm not sure I need to see the sunrise. What I need, more than any amount of fame or fortune or security, is to be with this person, just him, and to go to where he lives and smell his scent on the things he owns and sleep in the place where he's slept for too many lonely nights just like I have. I know that now is the worst possible time to leap into the arms of this random underage stranger—after all, I'm totally broke and an opportunity for extortion like this only comes once in a lifetime—but hot damn! Have you looked at him? He makes me feel like I'm a sixteen-year-old virgin all over again, just seething with desire for that first tender touch, that first gentle kiss, that first not-so-gentle molestation accompanied by an inescapable embrace and followed by that first hot, clumsy, lightning-fast romp in the sheets and an intense afternoon of gratified spooning. Okay, who am I kidding? These are my own thoughts, so I might as well be honest. I've never felt this way before. I was an eleven-year-old virgin, just writhing with discomfort at the advances of my terribly confused best friend who turned out to just be using me to confirm his homosexuality, with the awkward petting and half-hearted fondling accompanied by a lot of slobbery kisses and a failed attempt at entry by a noncommittal member. Ah, adolescence… I really don't miss it at all._

In the end, temptation got the better of me, and I couldn't help but go all the way with James. All the way to his cheap hotel room. It took a ridiculous amount of argument before he agreed to ride in my shitty old jeep. He wanted to pay for a cab to take us across town with the spare change in his pocket. It was the thought that counted. The thought was as refreshing as it was annoying. It made me wonder at what point guys stopped feeling obligated to practice chivalry with me. Was it because I dressed kind of like a hooker or because I acted exactly like a hooker? And since when is it unnecessary to be chivalric with hookers? I bet if you pulled up to a streetwalker, walked around to the passenger side of the car, opened the door for her and laid your jacket down in the mud puddle below the curb so that she wouldn't get her precious stripper heels soiled when she got in, she would forget all about the money and screw you out of pure affection and gratitude. Not that I would know anything about prostitution… or drug smuggling… or Swiss bank accounts… or the Russian mafia… or the worldwide Reptilian conspiracy… not at all. Anyway, I listened to his sordid tale as we drove to the hotel. He told me all about how he banged his best friend Kendall's mom, who he suddenly fell in love with as a result of some strange fortune cookies they were given at a Chinese restaurant. Suffice it to say that sixteen-year-olds do not hold their liquor well.

"Now my friends have all disowned me and the whole band is falling apart. In fact… I'm not even sure I can handle Big Time Rush anymore. It might be time for me to try my hand at something new."

He got my attention with that. I snapped my neck checking him in the passenger seat to make sure he was serious. He was staring moodily out the window, frowning. "No, James! You really can't do that. You have to stick it out. Your friends will come around. The world loves Big Time Rush! You guys are on fire right now. To quit the band would be… well it would be the wrong thing to do. Just don't do it."

"Why does it matter so much to you?" he asked suspiciously.

_Because you're worth nothing to me without that contract with Hawk! _"Because… because you'd break like a million teenage girls' hearts. Don't teenage girls have it bad enough without their favorite bands imploding over sex scandals? They'd all have to switch to Justin Bieber without you! That's pathetic!"

"God, you're right. That is horrible. But I'm sure Big Time Rush will survive without me. They can find a new fourth member. It's not like the four of us are unique or anything. There are diamonds in the rough all around us. We were just in the right place at the right time." He smirked and did a little hair flip. "I guess most of my life is built on coincidences like that. Oh, this is the place. Just turn right here."

I parked around the side and James showed me up to his room on the second floor. It was one of those super-classy (sarcasm—can you smell it?) roach motels where all the doors are exterior and the room keys are like… actual keys. Even I felt shady for shacking up in a place like that. But hey, it's just business right? Well, whatever business that was, he got right down to it once the door was closed. He started kissing me like there was no time to lose—as if I charge by the hour! He took his hoodie off of me and threw it into the bathroom as we passed it, then he kept pushing me further into the room until I fell onto his bed. He looked down at me like Michael Phelps looks down at an Olympic swimming pool… or a submarine sandwich, more like. I had a moment of clarity. I could let James the stud muffin ravish me and get all dirty on his washboard abs, but if I let it happen, I probably wouldn't have the guts to hold him hostage once it was all over. I had to make a hard choice, but the reward couldn't have been bigger. I might have to chain James up in the bathtub and give him a cold shower, but I couldn't afford to spread the sleaze too thick under the covers. So just as he was lowering himself onto me and filling my nose with the smell of hairspray and hot sweat, I pushed him back and took evasive maneuvers.

"Hey, hey, slow down there tiger. Ain't you gonna let me freshen up first?" I winked and rolled out of his grasp.

He seemed disappointed, but he played along. "Sure, just don't take too long. My buzz is wearing off."

"Oh, well if that's the problem, I've got a whole case of Coors in the back of my shitty old je—I mean, in the back of my car. So I'll go get it and we can pop 'em in the mini fridge, 'kay?" I skipped on out of the motel room before he could reply. _Get yourself together, Amber! It's nothing you haven't done before. Just 'cause he's nice and pretty and cute and totally delicious doesn't mean you don't have the guts to knock him out! _I ran down to my shitty old jeep and reached in the back for the case of beer. I was walking back up the stairs with it when I realized that that wasn't the real reason I'd gone out. I ran back to the shitty old jeep, dumped the beer and reached into my emergency Barbie Bitch abduction kit.

"Let's see… knife stick? I don't know. If he stood up, I wouldn't even be able to reach him with that. Baseball bat? I can't hide that in this outfit! Ah, lead pipe! Perfect. And… here, some handcuffs. That should do." I stuffed the weapon and bondage down my shirt and went back to the room. James was sitting on the bed, checking his hair in his pocket mirror. "Hey, sorry sweetie but I must've misplaced the beer sometime."

"Fine, whatever. Let's just hurry up and pick up where we left off…" he stood up and put his arms around my waist, kissing my neck and grinding me against the wall.

"Whoa! Alright, that's cool. But, uh, what about these?" I pulled the handcuffs out of my shirt and dangled them in his face.

He looked at them and his eyes flashed like a grease fire. "Somebody wants to play dominatrix, huh? Okay, whatever floats your boat. I'm under your control."

I took him over to the bed and cuffed him to the wooden bedpost. "There we go. Now you'll never get away." I splayed him out flat and straddled him. "Who's your mommy?"

"I've been a bad boy, mommy. Please don't spank me! I'll cry!"

"Okay, this is getting a little creepy. Did you do this with Mrs. Knight too? Is this your shtick or something?"

"No, I was just playing off of you, y'know, trying to get you in the mood."

"Ah, just shut up. I've been in the mood all night." I tore open his shirt and ran my tongue up his stomach and across his chest, digging my claws into his luxurious hair at the same time. I suppose, on certain occasions, a girl can have her cake and eat it too. This cake… looked too yummy to pass up just a little taste. I pulled his belt off of his pants and cracked it a few times in the air like a whip. "C'mon then, take your punishment like a man." I took his free arm and tied it with the belt to the one that was handcuffed to the bedpost forcefully. After sleeping with as many sailors as I have, you learn a few good knots. "This would be so much better if you closed your eyes." I suggested. I ripped a strip out of my skirt and tied it around his head like a blindfold. Then, just to tease him, I laid down flat on top of him on my back, sliding my head in next to his, and slunk my hand down into his pants. "Well, Mr. Diamond, you certainly live up to your name. You're making this awfully _hard _on me." I whispered into his ear, then bit the lobe and purred. _Just stop playing with him and get it over with! _I urged myself. _Oh, fine! You're no fun. Can't I just… see what he's working with first? _I crawled down and tugged on his zipper with my teeth. He groaned in anticipation. _Amber, you've got him! Do it now! _I sat up and pulled the lead pipe out of my shirt. I looked at it remorsefully. _Oh, alright. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do._

"Get on with it already!" he whined.

"Well, James you asked for it! I'll hit you with all that I've got!" I raised the pipe up with both hands, hesitated for a moment, then brought it down with a hollow _clank _onto James' skull. He was out cold. I didn't want to flatter myself, but I thought I might've killed him. Feeling kinda like I needed a cold shower myself, I dismounted James' half-naked body and dropped the pipe onto the nightstand. With no time to lose before he woke up, I dialed Hawk's old number in my cell phone, hoping it was still valid. He picked up after five rings, much to my delight.

"What? Who is this?" he sounded flustered and frenzied, which was very unlike him.

"Good evening Mr. Hawk. It's your old friend Amber Simms, from the Barbie Bitches. Remember me?"

"Amber? Why the Hell are you calling me right now? I'm indescribably busy."

"Just give me a chance! I really think you'll want to hear this."

He paused for a second and sighed. "Okay, make it quick! You've got thirty seconds to impress me."

"I'm standing next to the unconscious body of James Diamond in a nondescript hotel room somewhere in the city. If you agree to the deal that I'm about to give you, he'll wake up in his own bed tomorrow morning and have no inkling of his life ever being threatened or saved. If you refuse my offer, well… don't make me finish that sentence."

He scoffed at me. Over the phone, he scoffed at someone threatening to kill the most popular man on his payroll! Nothing ever seemed to faze that guy. "Fuck you Amber. Is this a prank call?"

"I'll be god-ditty-titty-damned if this is a prank! You better start taking me seriously Hawk!"

"Okay then, if you're actually holding James prisoner, prove it."

I turned to the body on the bed. Prove it? I wasn't expecting him to say that. I was expecting Hawk to piss his pants and do what I said without question. I guess I'd forgotten who I was swindling. "Well, uh, he's got a rather conspicuous mole near the base of his neck—"

"Duh! Every fangirl and her mother know that. There are entire websites devoted to that mole."

"Damn, I hate the internet. That shit ain't right. Let's see then…" I reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out his wallet. "He's got a credit card here. The number is 4729 3853 9830 1328."

"Don't waste my time, bitch! How the Hell should I know what his credit card number is? You're probably making that up!"

"Okay, fine! One second…" I dug around in his pockets some more until my hand grazed something. I pulled out a comb. "He's got a comb in here. Does that help?"

"Amber, that's James' lucky comb! For God's sake, put it down! Never touch that again!"

I dropped it like it was hot and squawked in frustration. "Do you have picture mail on your phone?"

"Of course I do. What is this, 2005?"

"Okay, then just let me send you a picture of him!" I took a picture of my victim and sent it to Hawk while he waited on the other line.

"Oh wow." He said after a few seconds. "I've never seen this one on the internet before."

"That's because I just took it."

"Take another one, this time with you in it."

"Hey, this isn't a peep show Hawk! I'm not in the practice of handing out dirty pictures for free. Besides, I'm not even decent. I had to rip this cute skirt to use it as a blindfold on him."

"Amber, didn't your daddy ever teach you how to play nice?"

"Don't even think about poking that nerve, buddy. If I didn't have daddy issues, do you really think I'd be making my living by doing _this_?" I sent him the second picture with me sitting on the bed beside James. You could totally see my panties because of the mangled skirt but I was too tired to care.

"Damn, you ain't even playin' around! I may have to save this picture for later…"

"Time to shut up and listen to my demands. I'm broke and unemployed. My career as a renegade street dancer ended seven weeks ago when I was trounced by Mr. X. Long story short, I need work."

"So you want me to try to make you rich and famous again?"

"Only if it isn't too much trouble, Shauny sweetie." I said in my slutty schoolgirl voice.

"Tell you what. I'm on the highway right now, also with an unconscious body in tow. Right now she's sleeping soundly in the backseat, but I'm gonna need a more permanent place to store her for the time being. Do you still hang out in that derelict warehouse?"

"Meh… from time to time, sure."

"Okay. Meet me there at midnight. You can hand James over to me and I'll stop by my office on the way and draw up a contract for you to sign. Sound good?"

"Just make sure that it's an unbreakable contract! No loopholes, Hawk! I know you're a smooth operator, but you'd better not show up with any bullshit up your sleeve or so help me—"

"Relax, Amber, relax. I promise full fidelity. I'll work with you to the best of my ability. You're riding the success machine, now! I'll just tuck Kelly away in your warehouse and check up on her from time to time. You won't have to worry about her. And I'll make sure the contract is signed before you hand James over."

It sounded too good to be true… but I didn't have any choice but to trust that bastard. I decided to go with it before he started reneging. "Great! It's a deal. I'll see you at midnight. Don't be late!" I hung up on him quickly and put the phone down. It seemed like everything had gone perfectly. So why was I so nervous and shaky? I paced around the hotel room and fanned myself with the takeout menu that I'd taken off the top of the TV. I checked the time on the ancient digital alarm clock. It wasn't even nine o'clock yet. What if James woke up in the next three hours? What if he never woke up? Hawk would have me whacked if that happened. _What goes around comes around._

"Oh, conscience, shut up! I haven't used you since elementary school." I crept over to James' side and unlocked his handcuffs with the key I'd stuck in my hair. I rolled him up in the comforter and dragged him out of the room, down the stairs, through the quickly accumulating snow and across the parking lot to my shitty old jeep without being seen. I hoisted him up into the back. He was secured between the pink duffle bag full of man-wrangling tools and the case of Coors. I had my keys in the ignition when a thought occurred to me. I climbed into the back again and opened up the impromptu piggy-in-a-blanket gingerly, exposing the hot dog inside. The frigid blizzard winds blasted us and I felt sorry for having left James' furry hoodie in the bathroom.

"This might be my last chance to do this… I feel like a total creep, but I just can't go to my grave without knowing…" I unzipped his pants and took a little peek inside his Calvin Klein briefs. For all the James Diamond fans out there who've always wondered… I was _not _disappointed.


End file.
